Developer Doc

This project is a community effort, and everyone is welcome to contribute.

The project is hosted on https://github.com/JohnsonJDDJ/zilean.

Ways to Contribute

There are many ways to contribute to zilean, with the most common ones being contribution of code or documentation to the project.

Improving the documentation is no less important than improving the library itself. If you find a typo in the documentation, or have made improvements, do not hesitate to send an email to johnsondzh@gmail.com or preferably submit a GitHub pull request. Full documentation can be found under the doc/ directory.

How to Contribute

The preferred way to contribute to zilean is to fork the main repository on GitHub, then submit a “pull request” (PR).

  1. Create a GitHub account if you don’t have one.

  2. Fork the project repository click on the “Fork” button near the top of the page. This creates a copy of the code under your account on the GitHub user account.

  3. Clone your fork of the zilean repo from your GitHub account to your local disk. Replace YourLogin with your GitHub username:

    $ git clone git@github.com:YourLogin/zilean.git
$ cd zilean

  4. Add the upstream remote. This saves a reference to the main zilean repository, which you can use to keep your repository synchronized with the latest changes:

    $ git remote add upstream git@github.com:JohnsonJDDJ/zilean.git

  5. Check that the upstream and origin remote aliases are configured correctly by running git remote -v which should display:

    origin      git@github.com:YourLogin/zilean.git (fetch)
origin      git@github.com:YourLogin/zilean.git (push)
upstream    git@github.com:JohnsonJDDJ/zilean.git (fetch)
upstream    git@github.com:JohnsonJDDJ/zilean.git (push)

  6. You should now have a working installation of zilean, and your git repository properly configured. The next steps now describe the process of modifying code and submitting a PR.

  7. You need to synchronize your main branch with the upstream/main branch before you make any modification:

    $ git checkout main
$ git fetch upstream
$ git merge upstream/main

  8. Create a feature branch to hold your development changes. Replace my_feature with the name of your feature:

    $ git checkout -b my_feature

  9. Start making changes. It is a good idea to always use a feature branch. As you make changes, use git add and git commit to record your changes. Then, push the changes to your GitHub account with:

    $ git push -u origin my_feature

  10. Finally, follow these instructions to create a pull request from your fork. Your pull request will be reviewed, and we will follow up with you for any further changes.

GL;HF!