I have never been fluent with version control systems, but everybody is
saying it's the only way to go, with one website going so far as to
insult visitors who don't use one.  Here, the consensus is that it's the
easiest way to contribute to the POV-Ray project, so I decided to dive
in. I am becoming more befuddled by the day.

I think I've seen enough tutorials to learn the basics of Git, and I've
installed Git-Cola because I need an easy visual reference for what's
going on. I am forcing myself to have faith that I will get a feel for
Git as I continue to use it.

But now I've run into a second problem, which has dogged me since I got
my new computer, and is preventing me from pushing my modules to GitHub:
security.

When I connect to a new Wi-Fi, KDE opens up a wallet and asks for my
credentials.  On my old system, all I did was supply a password, but now
it's asking me to create a new one.  The last time I had to do this was
in 2013; best I figure is some hidden data from my old system didn't get
copied over.  But I don't remember what I did 8 years ago.

It asks me to choose between classic, blowfish (whatever that is) and
GPG (whatever that is), for better protection.  I choose GPG, and am
immediately told that my system has no keys suitable for encryption, and
to please set up at least one encryption key.  I search the Web for how
to set up a GPG encryption key, and end up thoroughly confused.  I
remember, years ago, trying to learn PGP, and I never understood that
either.

But I've been able to get by, by cancelling out and typing in passwords
when necessary--which turns out to be not often.  So it was when I tried
to push a local project to GitHub using Git-Cola.  I got exit status
128, with a message that password authentication was removed on August
13, 2021, and to use a personal access token (PAT) instead.

I followed the supplied GitHub link, which had, among other things, the
timeline for the policy change.  They announced it in July 2020, which
should be plenty of warning... except that I had no GitHub account back
then.  The timeline entry for "today" was that I would get an email.  So
I checked my email for messages from GitHub, but all I found were the
signup confirmation messages--dated August 13, the same day that they
discontinued the passwords!  (And my gym instructor is trying to
convince me that there is a god because of all the wonderful
coincidences in her life.)

I followed the link explaining how to set up a PAT, and ran into two
problems.  First was to give my token a descriptive name.  I don't even
know what's going on!  How am I supposed to describe it?  Then it says
to select the scopes, or permissions, to grant the token.  Now I'm
stuck.  Not only am I not sure what to check and what not to check, but
the one suggestion given (repo) is to access repositories from the
command line.  But I'm not using the command line, I'm using Git-Cola.

I cannot find any instructions on how to use a PAT with Git-Cola.  Its
user interface is bleakly sparse, and there is no help feature that I
can find.  Its online documentation is almost as sparse; it basically
tells the user what they already know.  Web searches on "git-cola
personal access token" are disappointingly unhelpful.

So, all you who have been using Git-Cola since August 13: how is it done?

Is my life getting easier yet?

Please don't ask me to use the command line. I cannot remember the CLI
options from one hour to the next.

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