I would like to contribute to XFCE

[Jérôme Guelfucci]

Hello,

On 04/03/13 00:05, Ondřej Kulatý wrote:
> 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?

If you are working on a big thing which requires a lot of changes, where 
its worth splitting the commits, then pushing your commits to Github or 
Gitorious is a good idea.

If the change is "simple" and a single commit makes it clear what is 
going on, then attaching the patch from git format-patch to the bugzilla 
is enough.

I'm looking forward to seeing your first contributions, don't hesitate 
if you have more questions.

Cheers,

Jérôme

>
> 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