Adinkra

Photo by Nate Greno on Unsplash

Adinkra are symbols that represent concepts or aphorisms. Adinkra are used extensively in fabrics and pottery among the Ashantis of Ashanti Kingdom and the Baoules who historically migrated to Ghana.

The symbols have a decorative function but also represent objects that encapsulate evocative messages that convey traditional wisdom, aspects of life or the environment.

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The API

Check it out live here

Endpoints

• GET /
• GET /symbols

Query String Parameters

The /symbols route accepts the query string parameters name, meaning and synopsis for returning specific symbols that match those searches.

To get all symbols with 'Nyame' in the name, you would send /symbols?name=Nyame

To get all symbols with 'star' in the meaning you would send /symbols?meaning=star Same for 'star' in the synopsis if you follow my drift.

You can also combine query string params. /symbols?name=Nyame&meaning=heavens&synopsis=courage will return all symbols than contain 'Nyame' in the name or 'heaven' in the meaning or 'courage' in the synopsis.

Example Queries

GET https://adinkra.herokuapp.com/symbols?name=Nyame&meaning=heavens&synopsis=courage

GET https://adinkra.herokuapp.com/symbols?name=Nyame

GET https://adinkra.herokuapp.com/symbols?meaning=star

To Contribute

Fork this repository

Fork this repository by clicking on the fork button on the top of this page. This will create a copy of this repository in your account.

Clone the repository

Now clone the forked repository to your machine. Go to your GitHub account, open the forked repository, click on the clone button and then click the copy to clipboard icon.

Open a terminal and run the following git command:

git clone "url you just copied"

where "url you just copied" (without the quote marks) is the url to this repository (your fork of this project). See the previous steps to obtain the url.

For example:

git clone https://github.com/this-is-you/adinkra.git

where this-is-you is your GitHub username. Here you're copying the contents of the first-contributions repository on GitHub to your computer.

Create a branch

Change to the repository directory on your computer (if you are not already there):

cd adinkra

Now create a branch using the git checkout command:

git checkout -b <add-your-new-branch-name>

For example:

git checkout -b your-branch-name

(The name of the branch does not need to have the word add in it, but it's a reasonable thing to include because the purpose of this branch is to add your name to a list.)

Make necessary changes and commit those changes

If you go to the project directory and execute the command git status, you'll see there are changes.

Add those changes to the branch you just created using the git add command:

git add .

Now commit those changes using the git commit command:

git commit -m "<Descriptive Commit Message>"

Push changes to GitHub

Push your changes using the command git push:

git push origin <add-your-branch-name>

replacing <add-your-branch-name> with the name of the branch you created earlier.

Submit your changes for review

If you go to your repository on GitHub, you'll see a Compare & pull request button. Click on that button.

Now submit the pull request.