Contributing

As the source code of e107 is now hosted on GitHub, it has now become so much easier to start contributing to the project.

Let’s walk through this guide which explains how to contribute in the easy way. You don not need to learn how to really use git but instead you'll be learning about some basic steps to be able to contribute to e107.

Step 1: Sign up for GitHub

https://github.com/signup/free Enter your username, email address, password and click on “Create an account”.

Step 2: Fork the e107 repository

By forking the e107 repository you create your own brand new repository containing the e107 source code files.

• Browse to the e107 repository: https://github.com/e107inc/e107
• Click “Fork”

Step 3: Clone your repository

To copy the repository files to your computer, you will need to use a client. Github has developed their own clients for both Windows and Mac users. these are great programs to start with and we encourage beginners to start by downloading this client:

• You can find the Windows based Github client here: http://windows.github.com/
• You can find the Mac based Github client here: http://mac.github.com/
• You can also use a tool called TortoiseGit, which is more advanced and will therefore not be covered in this how-to.

Once installed you can browse to your own repository (which you just forked) and hit the “Clone in Windows” or “Clone in Mac”. It should now automatically copy the repository files to your local computer.

Step 4: Make the changes

To quickly browse to your local copy, right-click on the repository in the Github client and press “Open in explorer”. Make the changes and edit whatever files you want to edit, add or delete.

Step 5: Commit and sync

Once you are done, the Github client should say there are uncommitted files. This is correct, as you have edited your local repository but they are not committed to the online repository yet. Be sure to enter a very informative description of your commit (explain what changes you made and why and relate your commit to an issue number in the issue tracker if possible.) and hit the commit button. After that be sure to press the "Sync" button at the top of the client window.

The changes are now being uploaded to your Github repository.

Step 6: Submit a so-called Pull Request

To inform the e107 developers of your changes, you need to submit a pull request. Browse to your repository and click the "Pull request" button. Be sure to include a descriptive and informative title on what you changed and why. Be as extensive as possible. Click on the “Send pull request” button to fire your request up to the e107 core developers.

They will review your changes and will merge them into the e107 source code once approved. Note that during the approval process discussion might take place and additional changes are needed.

Try it, and let us know if you have any questions!

Open Issues

Use one of the following in your comments when committing fixes to issues to reference an issue number.

fixes #xxx
fixed #xxx
fix #xxx
closes #xxx
close #xxx
closed #xxx