This is shown below three buttons we often see.
From left to right, followed by watch star fork, the following were saying under their specific role.
watch
watch translation can be called to observe, click on the watch list can be seen below.
Each user is in default Not watching the state, when you choose Watching, after that you are concerned about all of the dynamic of this project, since as long as the project changed, such as a pull request submitted by someone else, someone else initiated the issue, etc. case, you will be in their own personal notification center, receive a notification message, if you set up a personal mailbox, your mailbox may also receive the corresponding mail
As I watch the open source project Android-CN / Android-at discuss , then after anyone who submitted the issue in this project or have any comments on the following issue, I Notification Center will notify me. If you configure the mailbox, you may also therefore continue to receive mail.
If you do not want to accept these notifications, you can then click Not Watching.
Also here there is an article about a message Send to how to receive GitHub correct , very good article, recommend everyone to see.
star
star translated should be the star, but the translation did not have any specific meaning, interpreted here as 关注or 点赞more appropriate, when you click on the star, that you like this item or popular point, can he understood as point circle of friends like it, told support for this project.
But Chan points compared to the circle of friends, there will be a list github, specially collected all the items that you start over, click on github profile picture, you can see the entries of your star, you can click on to view all the items that you had a star . As shown below
However, this problem is easily the star appear in your list. That is, how do you may star hundreds of projects. At this time, if github can provide a classification nice, like microblogging web version of the collection, you can set time favorite tag, the benefits of this arrangement is that when the project again find later, can be classified according to find, but do not know github product manager is how to think, github does not have this feature, but never missing a github thought enforceable programmers, it does not, some time ago, someone made a Chrome plugin that can github all star items are classified as follows, note the picture on the right, one more Filter by tag list.
Download .
Although the plug-in has been very good, but there are still shortcomings, you can only star of the finished project, after star to the list in order to play tag on the project, which is very convenient.
We sincerely hope that the future can github own support for the star of the tag processing. Look forward to ...
fork
When selecting fork, you have the equivalent of a copy of the original project, of course, this was only for a copy of the project file, if the subsequent original project file is changed, you have to synchronize other ways.
In general, we do not need to use fork this feature, at least I do not usually use, unless there is some projects, there may be a bug or place can continue to optimize, you want to help to improve the original project of this project, you can fork a parts of the project down, and then revise and improve themselves to this project, when you feel the project is no problem, you can try to launch the original project of the push request to, and then quietly wait for him merge.
我看到很多人错误的在使用 fork。很多人把 fork 当成了收藏一样的功能，包括一开始使用 github 的我，每次看到一个好的项目就先 fork， 因为这样，就可以我的 repository(仓库)列表下查看 fork 的项目了。其实你完全可以使用 star 来达到这个目的。
使用建议
对于一些可能会经常发生变化的会不定期更新的好项目 多使用 watch.
比如 android-cn 团队的 android-discuss 项目， 你就可以 watching 它，这里面都是一些关于 Android 技术的交流，如果有任何新问题，你都可以收到通知，你可以查看别人的回答， 你可以回答别人提出的问题，这是一个很好的学习成长方式。
其他值得watch的项目还有很多，比如 github 上很多的 Awesome 系列的项目,如Awesome-MaterialDesign等，你 watch 这些项目了， 只要项目新增一些好玩好用的东西，你就会收到通知。
我在知乎上看到有人问这样的问题，说 github 上有哪些值得 watch 的项目，其实有很多，我自己也整理了一些，但是没放到 github ， 有兴趣的同学可以联系，一起维护这样一个项目。
值得注意的是，如果 watch多了，你可能会被无休止的邮件通知烦死（邮件通知可设置），所以做好权衡，哈哈~
喜欢一个项目就 star 它吧~
修改开源项目就使用fork，这样你就可以在原项目的基础上，对项目进行修改提交，现在你是这个项目的主人啦~
小细节
Sometimes, you see the star a number of projects have a lot, you want to know in the end there are those who star of this project, the project or fork, but look around, but you can not find an entry, then himself inadvertently found that, as long as 点击 star 傍边的数字you can see who star in the project. Is not it a bit mean, now you can try it, watch, fork above figures are clickable, the same reason.
Epilogue
Just say here about the use of these three buttons, github sure there are a lot of tips, we welcome a lot to discuss, learn from each other. In addition, I on android-cn of android-discuss below and know almost all were raised similar questions, we are interested we can focus the next.
Github on Github what are interesting, is not well-known small function?
We know almost what are helpful but not well-known small features on Github?
