Contributing to Zotonic

We encourage contributions to Zotonic from the community! This chapter describes how you can help improve Zotonic.

  1. Fork the zotonic repository on Github (at https://github.com/zotonic/zotonic).

  2. Clone your fork or add the remote if you already have a clone of the repository:

    git clone git@github.com:yourusername/zotonic.git
    

    or:

    git remote add mine git@github.com:yourusername/zotonic.git
    
  3. Create a topic branch for your change:

    git checkout -b some-topic-branch
    
  4. Make your change and commit. Use a clear and descriptive commit message, spanning multiple lines if detailed explanation is needed.

  5. Push to your fork of the repository and then send a pull-request through Github:

    git push mine some-topic-branch
    
  6. A Zotonic committer will review your patch and merge it into the main repository or send you feedback. The pull request page on github is the main place to discuss the code and related topics.

Coding standards

The Zotonic code follows Inaka’s Erlang Coding Guidelines. This is enforced using the Elvis code checking tool. You can check the code locally with:

$ elvis rock

When contributing, simply try to follow the coding style as you find it in the existing code.

Emacs

Provided with the Zotonic distribution is a Zotonic template mode, zotonic-tpl-mode, which supports the Zotonic flavor of Django. It is located in the priv/emacs/zotonic-tpl-mode.el file, and may be installed in emacs by adding something like this to your .emacs file:

(add-to-list 'load-path ".../path/to/zotonic/priv/emacs")
(require 'zotonic-tpl-mode)
;; optional, for associating .tpl files with zotonic-tpl-mode
(add-to-list 'auto-mode-alist '("\\.tpl$" . zotonic-tpl-mode))

Writing commit messages

The Zotonic commit convention are slightly based on rebar’s README.

Structure your commit message like this:

prefix: One line summary (less than 50 characters)

Longer description, multiline text that is supposed to wrap at 72
characters.

Fixes #403
  • Prefix: Every commit message must start with one of the designated commit prefixes:

  • mod_foobar: Changes that are related to a single module should be prefixed with the module name.
  • doc: For changes to the documentation, everything below doc/
  • scripts: for changes to the zotonic command and its helper scripts.
  • build: for the build system and related changes.
  • tests: for unit tests and the testsandbox.
  • skel: for the skeleton sites.
  • zotonic_status: for the default site.
  • translation: for new/updated translations.
  • core: For changes in the apps/zotonic_core directory; i.e., anything not covered by another tag.

  • The summary should be less than 50 characters, and tell what was changed. Use the imperative present tense (fix, add, change). For example: Add ‘foobar’ filter, Fix bug in media upload service.
  • The description should explain the intention and implementation of your approach, in the present tense.
  • Optionally, when your commit fixes a bug on github, add Fixes #1545 on a separate line below the description.

Notice the empty line preceding the longer description and the “Fixes” tag.

Git best practices

  • Please maintain commit atomicity by breaking up logical changes into separate commits; e.g., do not commit unrelated fixes into a single commit.
  • Make whitespace changes separately.
  • When updating from the Zotonic source, please use git pull --rebase to prevent unnecessary merge commits.
  • Generally, try to Mind your Git Manners.

The CONTRIBUTORS file

When this is your first contribution to Zotonic, you are welcome to add your name and e-mail address to the CONTRIBUTORS file in the root of the project. Please keep the file alphabetically ordered.

Running the tests

Zotonic comes with a basic test suite which can be run the following way:

zotonic runtests

This starts the Zotonic system and executes all EUnit tests. It will disable all zotonic sites except for the special site testsandbox, which will be enabled.

The testsandbox site does not have a database configuration and is configured to run on localhost:8040.

Contributing documentation

Build the documentation

First, install Sphinx. To build the documentation, Erlang must be installed.

$ cd doc/

# Install dependencies
$ pip install -r requirements.txt

# Generate meta-*.rst files:
$ make stubs

# Then generate HTML files:
$ make html

Then view the HTML files in doc/_build/html/index.html.

Heading styles

Use the following convention for headings:

First-level heading
===================

Second-level heading
--------------------

Third-level heading
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Fourth-level heading
""""""""""""""""""""

When writing documentation of modules, actions, etc.; anything under ref/; the first level heading is already there for you, generated in the meta-*.rst file. So you should only use ---------- and .......... for the headings in the ref/ files.

When using Emacs, this little snippet helps with adding underlines to headings:

(defun underline-with-char (char)
  (interactive (list (read-from-minibuffer "Char: ")))
  (when (= 0 (length char))
    (error "Need a character"))
  (setq char (aref char 0))             ; Ignore everything but the first char.
  (save-excursion
    (goto-char (point-at-eol))
    (insert "\n"
            (make-string (- (point-at-eol)
                            (point-at-bol))
                         char))))

From a mailing list post.

References

Be generous with using references (:ref:`pagelabel`) in your writing. The more terms are linked to their respective documentation pages, the better. Only make the first occurrence of a term a reference to its page, though; consequent occurrences can be made `italic`.

Add a .. seealso:: section at the top to highlight any other pages which are closely related to the current one, for example:

.. code-block:: none

Table styles

For the easy editing of tables, we use Emacs’ table-mode, which at first has a bit of a learning curve but actually works pretty well when creating the ascii-art tables that the RST format requires you to use.

In general, we use this style of table:

+--------------------+-------------------+
| Header             |Other header       |
+====================+===================+
|This is the table   |Some more contents |
|cell contents       |                   |
+--------------------+-------------------+

Writing consistent Cookbook items

A Zotonic Cookbook item is a single-concept solution to a well-defined problem, living in the Cookbooks section of the documentation.

Useful items range from the simplest content management tasks to technically sophisticated module development and site administration solutions. This means that items are welcomed from noobies and wizards alike.

Whenever you struggle to find a solution to a specific problem, fail to find a Cookbook item that addresses it, and work through the solution with a final “Aha!,” you have the raw material for an excellent Cookbook submission.

A well-written item has four sections:

WHY: What problem does this Cookbook item solve? What benefits does it deliver?

Four major reasons for submitting Cookbook items are:

  1. The best way to learn is to teach
  2. Your Cookbook items documents your efforts; helps you remember what you did next time you encounter a similar problem
  3. Each item makes it that much easier for noobies and other community members to advance their Zotonic skills.

ASSUMPTIONS: What does this item assume about operating system, Linux distribution, programming skills, knowledge of Zotonic architecture and conventions etc.

HOW: Step-by-step instructions for implementing your solution.

Don’t take user competency for granted. When you specify a command, note what user name you’re working under and what directory you are working in. Respect the noobies by including steps that may be obvious to you but not so obvious to folks with less experience.

Think of your instructions as a check-list. A noobie should be able to achieve success by reading, implementing and checking off each instruction. Keep your instructions simple, complete, and clear.

Recruit a noobie to try out your solution. Fix the stumbling blocks s/he encounters. If you can’t find a noobie, put yourself in noobie mind. Remember, you too once were one.

Zotonic releases

Release dates

Zotonic follows a time-based release model. Every first Monday of the month – at the call of the Dutch test siren – a new Zotonic version is released. Version numbers are incremented according to the Semantic versioning specification.

Release schedule

Preparation for each release lasts one month:

  1. Development phase: new features are added and existing ones improved. Commits take place on the current .x development branch (for instance, 0.x).
  2. Stabilisation phase: five working days before a release, we create a release branch from the development branch, incrementing the minor version number (for instance, release-0.16.0). During the stabilisation phase, no new features are added. Instead, the last bug fixes for the release are committed.
  3. On the first Monday of each month, the release branch is tagged (for instance, 0.16.0), merged back into the development branch and then discarded.

Hotfix releases

Some bug fixes, such as security fixes, need to be made available immediately. In case a change cannot wait for the next monthly release, we release it as a hotfix, incrementing the patch number (for instance, 0.16.1).

Troubleshooting Developer Guide Release Notes

Referred by

Issues and features

If you encounter any issues in using Zotonic, or have ideas for new features, please let us know at the Zotonic issue…