Merge pull request #62 from kafitzgerald/update_contrib_and_inst

Fix broken links and minor updates to contributing guide and installation instructions

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -1,36 +1,36 @@
-Please first refer to [GeoCAT Contributor's Guide](https://geocat.ucar.edu/pages/contributing.html) for overall 
-contribution guidelines (such as detailed description of GeoCAT structure, forking, repository cloning, 
-branching, etc.). Once you determine that a data file should be added to this repository, 
-please refer to the following contribution guidelines:
+Please refer to the [GeoCAT website](https://geocat.ucar.edu/) for an overview of the GeoCAT project
+and relevant resources.
 
+Below are guidelines for adding new files to geocat-datafiles:
 
 # Policies for adding new files
 
-1. Knowing that Github allows a maximum size of 100 MB for a single file upload, small(ish) example 
-data sets - on the order of a few MBs - should be chosen for testing or examples. 
+1. Knowing that Github allows a maximum size of 100 MB for a single file upload, small(ish) example
+   data sets - on the order of a few MBs - should be chosen for testing or examples. 
 
-    - Contributors should endeavor to use existing data sets before considering contributing new ones. 
-    - However, if an existing data set simply won’t do the job, new ones may certainly be added. 
-    - Contributors should ensure that contributed files are stripped of irrelevant variables that unnecessarily 
-    take up space. 
+    - Contributors should endeavor to use existing data sets before considering contributing new ones. However,
+      if an existing data set simply won’t do the job, new ones may be added. 
+    - Contributors should ensure that contributed files are stripped of irrelevant variables that unnecessarily
+      take up space. 
 
-2. Contributors of data sets are responsible for ensuring that they have appropriate permissions for 
-redistribution of any contributed data sets.
+3. Contributors of data sets are responsible for ensuring that they have appropriate permissions for
+   redistribution of any contributed data sets.
 
 
-# Adding new data files to the Geocat-datafiles repo
+# Adding new data files to the GeoCAT-datafiles repository
 
-1. Add files to appropriate subdirectory based on file format, e.g. “`netcdf_files`”, etc
+1. Add files to appropriate subdirectory based on file format, e.g. “`netcdf_files`”, etc.
 
-2. Generate new “registry.txt” by running the command:
+2. Generate a new “registry.txt” by running the command:
 
     `python create_registry.py`
 
-    - This command requires [PyPi's Pooch framework](https://pypi.org/project/pooch/) to be installed. 
-
-        - Please follow the [installation instructions](https://github.com/NCAR/geocat-datafiles/INSTALLATION.md) 
-        to ensure an accurate conda environment is installed and activated for GeoCAT-datafiles, including 
-        [PyPi's Pooch framework](https://pypi.org/project/pooch/).
+    - This command requires [Pooch](https://pypi.org/project/pooch/) to be installed. Please follow the
+      [installation instructions](https://github.com/NCAR/geocat-datafiles/INSTALLATION.md) to ensure your active
+      conda environment includes the required packages.
+
+3. Open a pull request with these changes on [NCAR/geocat-datafiles](https://github.com/NCAR/geocat-datafiles). Once
+   the pull request is merged, the files should be available. No package release is required.
 
 **Note**: Python package in `$GEOCATDATAFILES/src` directory, very minimal maintenance required, does not need to be 
 updated when a new file is added.

INSTALLATION.md

@@ -1,29 +1,29 @@
 # Installation
 
-This installation guide includes only the GeoCAT-datafiles installation instructions. 
-Please refer to [GeoCAT Contributor's Guide](https://geocat.ucar.edu/pages/contributing.html) for installation of 
-the whole GeoCAT project.
+This installation guide includes instructions only for GeoCAT-datafiles. 
+Please refer to the [GeoCAT website](https://geocat.ucar.edu/pages/software.html) for links to resources for other GeoCAT projects.
 
 
-## Installing GeoCAT-datafiles via Conda in a New Environment
+## Installing GeoCAT-datafiles via Conda in a new environment
 
 The easiest way to install GeoCAT-datafiles is using [Conda](http://conda.pydata.org/docs/):
 
-    conda create -n geocat -c conda-forge -c ncar geocat-datafiles
+    conda create -n geocat -c conda-forge geocat-datafiles
 
 where "geocat" is the name of a new conda environment, which can then be
 activated using:
 
     conda activate geocat
 
-If you somewhat need to make use of other software packages, such as Matplotlib, Cartopy, Jupyter, etc. with
-GeoCAT-datafiles, you may wish to install into your `geocat` environment. The following `conda create` command can be
-used to create a new conda environment that includes some of these additional commonly used Python packages pre-installed:
+If you would like to make use of other software packages, such as Matplotlib, Cartopy, Jupyter, etc. with
+GeoCAT-datafiles, you may wish to install these under your `geocat` environment as well. The following
+command can be run to create a new conda environment that includes some of these additional Python packages:
 
-    conda create -n geocat -c conda-forge -c ncar geocat-datafiles matplotlib cartopy jupyter
+    conda create -n geocat -c conda-forge geocat-datafiles matplotlib cartopy jupyter
 
-Alternatively, if you already created a conda environment using the first command (without the extra packages),
-you can activate and install the packages in an existing environment with the following commands:
+Alternatively, if you already created a conda environment using the first command (i.e. without
+the extra packages), you can activate and install the packages in an existing environment with the following
+commands:
 
 ```
     conda activate geocat # or whatever your environment is called
@@ -34,17 +34,16 @@ Please note that the use of the **conda-forge** channel is essential to guarante
 compatibility between dependency packages.
 
 Also, note that the Conda package manager automatically installs all `required`
-dependencies, meaning it is not necessary to explicitly install Python, [Pooch](https://pypi.org/project/pooch/),
-etc. when creating an environment.
+dependencies, meaning it is not necessary to explicitly install Python, [Pooch](https://pypi.org/project/pooch/), etc. when creating an environment.
 
 If you are interested in learning more about how Conda environments work, please visit 
 the [managing environments](https://docs.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/tasks/manage-environments.html) 
 page of the Conda documentation.
 
-## Installing GeoCAT-datafiles in a Pre-existing Conda Environment
+## Installing GeoCAT-datafiles in a pre-existing Conda environment
 
-If you started a project and later decided to use GeoCAT-datafiles, you will need to install it in your pre-existing
-environment.
+If you started a project and later decided to use GeoCAT-datafiles, you will need to install it in your
+pre-existing environment.
 
 1.  Make sure your conda is up to date by running this command from the terminal:
 
@@ -56,7 +55,7 @@ environment.
 
 3. Install geocat-datafiles:
 
-   `conda install -c ncar -c conda-forge geocat-datafiles`
+   `conda install -c conda-forge geocat-datafiles`
 
 ## Updating GeoCAT-datafiles via Conda
 
@@ -80,14 +79,10 @@ It is important to keep your version of `geocat-datafiles` up to date. This can
 GeoCAT-datafiles is distributed also in PyPI; therefore, the above Conda installation instructions should, in theory,
 apply to PyPI installation through using `pip install` commands instead of `conda install` wherever they occur.
 
-## Installing GeoCAT-datafiles via PyPi
-GeoCAT-datafiles is distributed also in PyPI; therefore, the above Conda installation instructions should, in theory,
-apply to PyPI installation through using `pip install` commands instead of `conda install` wherever they occur.
-
 ## Building GeoCAT-datafiles from source
 
 Building GeoCAT-datafiles from source code is a fairly straightforward task, but
-doing so should not be necessary for most users. If you `are` interested in
+doing so should not be necessary for most users. If you are interested in
 building GeoCAT-datafiles from source, you will need the following packages to be
 installed.