Committing changes to branch I got by downloading zip from GitHub

I'm working on a repository that has two branches: Master, and Release1.

The branch I need is Release1. I went to the site and tried to clone it, but no matter what I did I got the Master branch cloned.

So I gave up and downloaded the branche's zip to my file system. I added it to Eclipse and worked on it.

Now I need to commit my changes. But neither the branch nor the repository show up in my visual tool.

When I try to add a local repository the visual tool tells me the folder is not a repository.

Is there a solution? I have quite a few changes on my local project and I have to commit them.

Solution

The Zip download is not a Git repository, it's only a collection of the files at that moment in time. Here's a way you might be able to get your changes into the repository:

Clone the repository properly
Copy your current files into the cloned directory
git status and git diff to check that the changes are what you expect
git commit

When you cloned the repository the first time, you were getting both branches - a Git clone is a fully copy of everything: every branch, all history, etc. The default branch is typically master. After you clone, if you want to switch to the other branch, use git checkout Release1.