I would like to contribute to XFCE

[Ondřej Kulatý]

Thanks for the answers. I've searched through bugzilla for some bugs I
could fix. Here they are:

Bug 4519 - navigating with "left"/"right" keys in tree side pane
Bug 8139 - Can't remove icon from custom action
Bug 9865 - Thunar shows wrong number of elements
Bug 9800 - url's with ( in them aren't selected right

I would like to fix at least some of these. I've tried to reproduce
them and they seem to be valid. Please let me know whether I can start
fixing them.

I have also noticed this howto on wiki:
http://wiki.xfce.org/dev/howto/contribute. It says that I can branch
off the main branch, and then push my changes to Github. What is
better then? To post patch as a comment in bugzilla or follow this
Github approach?

Thanks.
-- Ondrej Kulaty

2013/2/24 Jannis Pohlmann <jannis at xfce.org>
>
> Hi,
>
> On Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:21:11 +0100
> Ondřej Kulatý <kulaty.o at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> > I am currently studying at university and this semester we have
> > subject called "Open source programming". One of the assignments in
> > this subject it to get in touch with open source community and try to
> > contribute some open source project. I have choosen XFCE since it's my
> > favorite DE and I am currently using it on my Linux box. This will be
> > my first contribution to open source software. I have some experience
> > with C language, but no experience with other libraries used in XFCE,
> > like GTK etc.
>
> I think you made a good choice - Xfce covers various technical areas
> while still having a manageable amount of components and code.
>
> > Subject of participation
> > -----------------------------
> > Fixing some small bug(s) from bugzilla would be good start for me,
> > what do you think? I don't want to do nothing big, since I am not yet
> > familiar with XFCE code, used libraries etc.
>
> What's best in my opinion is to start with smaller issues that you
> notice yourself and that you'd like to see fixed. But of course you are
> free to pick any of the bugs reported in bugzilla. I'd recommend
> looking at the more recent bugs because the older ones are not always
> up to date or valid any more.
>
> But yes, small bugs are generally better than big features because
> the risk of failing is lower.
>
> > Workflow
> > -----------
> > I have already explored some bugs in bugzilla in order to understand
> > how this works. Correct me if I am wrong.
> > I will first choose a bug I want to fix (Do I need to ask somebody? Or
> > is it enough to write comment on bug page? Do I need to be assigned to
> > this bug?).
>
> I think it's worth collecting a few bugs that you're interested in
> working on and sending a mail to the list, asking about whether they
> are still valid and how hard they are to fix. That might help in
> picking something that sounds doable but is actually very hard or
> involves a lot of changes.
>
> You can add comments to the bugs to start a discussion on possible ways
> to fix them etc. They don't have to be assigned to you but I guess we
> could do that if you want to take that responsibility.
>
> > Then I will download latest version of source code from
> > GIT and try to find and fix that bug. After that I will create patch
> > and submit it as comment on page of the bug.
>
> Sounds good so far. :)
>
> > Will anybody test my fix and will I receive any feedback from
> > developers regarding my patch (if it's OK, if I am doing something
> > wrong etc...) ? If the fix will be OK, will it ever be merged in some
> > release?
>
> Yeah, somebody, .i.e., one of the developers will take the patch, review
> and test it and ideally commit it to Git. And once that's happened,
> it'll be included in the next release. We also occasionally backport
> fixes to older/stable versions.
>
> In any case, you'll get feedback on your patches, you may have to rework
> them, and once it's good, it'll be included.
>
> Note: we may be unresponsive, so make sure to poke us enough (e.g. on
> IRC) if you don't get feedback within a reasonable amount of time. ;)
>
> Good luck!
>
>   - Jannis