TimeRadar Static Site – GitHub Actions Versioning & Deployment

This repository is a static HTML site with automated deployment to GitHub Pages and versioned builds managed via Git tags and GitHub Actions.

Features

• Deploys the current site to the gh-pages branch automatically on every push to main
• Supports selective deployment using deploy.json to control which version is published (e.g., v2.0.0 or latest)
• Automatically saves versioned builds under versions/TimeRadar_<version>/ when a tag is pushed. (No need to manually copy files into the versions/ folder)
• Automatically deletes the corresponding versions/ folder when a version tag is deleted

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Customizing Deployment with deploy.json

You can control what version of the site is deployed by editing the deploy.json file in the root of the repository.

Example

To deploy the latest development files from the root (default behavior):

{
  "deploy": "latest"
}

To deploy a specific tagged version, for example v2.0.0, update the file to:

{
  "deploy": "v2.0.0"
}

GitHub Pages Deployment

The site is deployed automatically via GitHub Actions whenever:

• You push to the main branch
• You create or delete a version tag
• You update the deploy.json file to change which version is deployed

The deployment system reads the deploy.json file to determine which version of the site to publish.

• If "deploy": "latest" → the root files are deployed (latest dev state)
• If "deploy": "vX.X.X" → the corresponding folder under versions/TimeRadar_vX.X.X/ is deployed

If the specified version doesn't exist, the deployment gracefully falls back to latest. The deployed site is served from the gh-pages branch.

URL of Deployed Site

https://idataVisualizationLab.github.io/TimeRadar/

GitHub Actions Workflow

The deployment and versioning behavior is defined in:

.github/workflows/deploy.yml

This workflow:

• Creates version folders inside versions/ on tag push
• Deletes corresponding version folders on tag deletion
• Selectively deploys either a specific version or the latest based on deploy.json
• Pushes the selected version to the gh-pages branch for public access

Add a New Version (Tag)

To create a new version (for example, v2.0.0), use the following commands:

# Ensure your changes are committed and pushed to main first
git tag v2.0.0
git push origin v2.0.0

🚨 Important: Tags must include the v prefix (e.g., v1.0.0, v2.0.0) to work correctly with the automated workflow.

This will:

• Copy the current project files into versions/TimeRadar_v2.0.0/
• Commit that folder into the main branch automatically via GitHub Actions
• Redeploy the site to GitHub Pages (excluding the versions/ folder)
• You do not need to manually copy files into the versions/ folder — the GitHub workflow handles it.

Delete a Version

To delete a previously created version:

git tag -d v2.0.0
git push origin :refs/tags/v2.0.0

This will:

• Trigger a GitHub Action that automatically deletes the folder versions/TimeRadar_v2.0.0 from the main branch