[#810, github-backed example][xl]: improve looks, improve README, rename from simple-example to github-backed (#864)

examples/github-backed-catalog/README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+# A data catalog with data on GitHub
+
+This example showcases a simple data catalog that get its data from a list of GitHub repos that serve as datasets.
+
+A `datasets.json` file is used to specify which datasets are going to be part of the data catalog.
+
+The application contains an index page, which lists all the datasets specified in the `datasets.json` file, and users can see more information about each dataset, such as the list of data files in it and the README, by clicking the "info" button on the list.
+
+You can read more about it on the [Data catalog with data on GitHub](https://portaljs.org/docs/examples/github-backed-catalog) blog post.
+
+## Demo
+
+https://example.portaljs.org/
+
+## Deploy your own
+
+[![Deploy with Vercel](https://vercel.com/button)](https://vercel.com/new/clone?repository-url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fdatopian%2Fportaljs%2Ftree%2Fmain%2Fexamples%2Fgithub-backed-catalog)
+
+By clicking on this button, you will be redirected to a page which will allow you to clone the content into your own GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket account and automatically deploy everything.
+
+## How to use
+
+### Install
+
+Execute `create-next-app` to bootstrap the example:
+
+```
+npx create-next-app <app-name> --example https://github.com/datopian/portaljs/tree/main/examples/github-backed-catalog
+cd <app-name>
+```
+
+### Set environment variables
+
+This project uses the GitHub API, which for anonymous users will cap at 50 requests per hour, so you might want to get a [Personal Access Token](https://docs.github.com/en/authentication/keeping-your-account-and-data-secure/creating-a-personal-access-token) and add it to a `.env` file inside the folder like so
+
+```
+GITHUB_PAT=<github token>
+```
+
+### Change datasets
+
+You can change the datasets that will be displayed in the data catalog by editing the file `datasets.json`. Some examples can be found inside [this repo](https://github.com/datasets).
+
+### Run in development mode
+
+Run the app using:
+
+```
+npm run dev
+```
+
+Open http://localhost:3000 from your browser. You should see something similar to this:
+
+![](https://i.imgur.com/jAljJ9C.png)
+
+If click on the `info` button for a dataset you will see a page similar to this:
+
+![](https://i.imgur.com/AoJd4O0.png)
+
+## Notes
+
+### Structure of `datasets.json`
+
+The `datasets.json` file is simply a list of datasets, below you can see a minimal example of a dataset:
+
+```json
+{
+  "owner": "fivethirtyeight",
+  "repo": "data",
+  "branch": "master",
+  "files": ["nba-raptor/historical_RAPTOR_by_player.csv", "nba-raptor/historical_RAPTOR_by_team.csv"],
+  "readme": "nba-raptor/README.md"
+}
+```
+
+It has:
+
+- A `owner` which is going to be the github repo owner
+- A `repo` which is going to be the github repo name
+- A `branch` which is going to be the branch to which we need to get the files and the readme
+- A list of `files` which is going to be a list of paths with files that you want to show to the world
+- A `readme` which is going to be the path to your data description, it can also be a subpath eg: `example/README.md`
+
+You can also add:
+
+- A `description` which is useful if you have more than one dataset for each repo, if not provided we are just going to use the repo description
+- A `Name` which is useful if you want to give your dataset a nice name, if not provided we are going to use the junction of the `owner` the `repo` + the path of the README, in the exaple above it will be `fivethirtyeight/data/nba-raptor`
+
+### Extra commands
+
+You can also build the project for production with:
+
+```
+npm run build
+```
+
+And run the production build with:
+
+```
+npm run start
+```
+