Contributing to WordPress core - a primer

Editor's Notes

• #2: \n
• #3: - Good opportunity to talk about this, since it's fresh in my mind.\n- Name is Dave Martin\n- I work for Automattic on the dot org team\n- I started working on core at the beginning of the 3.5 release.\n- Automattic, which runs wp.com is a private company\n- They donate my time to work full time on core\n
• #4: - Check out the contributor handbook at this address\n- It covers a lot of the getting started questions you may have\n
• #5: - Not going to talk in depth about all of the ways you can contribute\n- There are loads of ways you can help out. \n- You don’t have to be a coder or designer to contribute.\n
• #6: - Going to focus on front-end dev and design perspective\n- That’s where I spend the bulk of my time.\n- You’ll also find this presentation helpful if you're just getting started in other ways\n
• #7: - Things I'd like to cover are the following\n
• #8: - TALK THROUGH EACH\n- IRC\n- Trac\n- Make P2’s\n- make.wordpress.org\n- Core, UI, plugins, themes, support, accessibility\n
• #9: - Trying to stick to 4 month release cycles\n- GO THROUGH EACH\n- 3-4 betas\n- 3 private RC’s and 1 public RC\n
• #10: - WordPress core operates as a meritocracy\n- Decisions are made by those who have contributed the most, and been around the longest\n- Does that mean if you’re new, your voice won’t be heard? Not at all. \n
• #11: - So, you’ve got an idea for improving wp-admin, or you’ve found a bug\n- The first thing you do is head over to Trac - and run a couple searches\n- there may already be a ticket\n- If so, you’ll see the back history\n- If you don’t find anything, ask in IRC - there may be a back story behind why it hasn’t been done.\n- If the reaction is positive, create a ticket\n
• #12: - I’ll walk you through how I do things\n- For all of these tutorials I’ll be using a Mac\n- That’s what I use, but a lot of the processes are similar on other operating systems\n
• #13: - First you’ll want to download and install XAMPP\n- This will auto install apache, PHP, and MySQL\n- Go ahead an just install it in your applications folder\n
• #14: - After you’ve installed XAMPP, \n- From the XAMPP control panel, you’ll want to turn on Apache, and MySQL\n
• #15: - After you’ve turned on XAMPP, open the htdocs\n- I’ve added the path here on the slide\n- And add a new folder called “wordpress”\n
• #16: - Next open terminal and change directories by typing cd /Applications/XAMPP/htdocs/wordpress\n- Then hit enter\n
• #17: - Then enter “SVN CO ...”\n- SVN is the version control used to host Wordpress trunk\n- CO equals “check out”\n- So essentially, you are checking out a copy of WordPress trunk to your local WordPress folder\n- Once you hit enter, you’ll see a bunch of WordPress files being added\n
• #18: - We need to create a database for WordPress\n- Open a browser and go to localhost/phpmyadmin/\n- In the create a new database section enter “wordpress” as the database name\n- And click create - this will create a blank DB for you to use with WordPress\n
• #19: - Open your new wordpress folder in a text editor (I use Coda)\n- Just like in any new install, you’ll want to\n- Make a copy of the wp-config-sample.php file, and rename it without the sample bit\n
• #20: - Add “wordpress” as the db name\n- Then root for the username, leave the password blank, and leave the host to localhost\n
• #21: - Last, just visit localhost/wordpress/trunk/ in your browser and finish your install\n- Your local site will then be accessible through localhost/wordpress/trunk/\n- And just tack a wp-admin on the end to reach the admin.\n
• #22: - Trac is where we keep track of bugs and everything that’s being worked on\n- This is the reports tab\n- You’ll see that report 5 there with show you all of the open tickets slated for the next major release\n- Report 35, which you can’t see here shows all UX, UI tickets.\n
• #23: - This is what you’ll see when you look at a ticket\n- The top portion lists who reported it\n- Attachments will include (patches, images)\n- Change history at the bottom is where you comment on this ticket, and read the ticket history.\n- We’ll go through the process of creating a patch at the end of the talk, and I’ll show you more of Trac then.\n
• #24: - There are plenty of IRC tutorials on the net, but I just want to touch quickly on getting started\n- The IRC client I use is called Adium - it’s free.\n
• #25: - After you download and install Adium, you’ll want to connect to irc.freenode.net\n
• #26: - The two rooms I frequent are: #wordpress-dev, and #wordpress-ui\n\n
• #27: - One of the best was to get your feet wet is to start by testing other peoples patches\n- So here’s a ticket with some improvements to the pressthis bookmarklet\n- It has yet to be committed, but multiple patches have been uploaded\n- The latest one dot 3 was uploaded 2 weeks ago.\n- So, you could come in and click that last link (which will show you the patch)\n\n
• #28: - From the patch page, you can review the code that has been submitted, \n- and you can download a copy of the patch to test it on your local install\n- Just click that grey link at the bottom that says “Original Format”\n\n
• #29: - After you’ve got that downloaded, to your desktop, drag it to your local WP install\n- It should be right there in the trunk directory\n
• #30: - Hop back over to terminal, and type svn status\n- This will show you any files that you’ve modified in trunk, or any file that has not been added via SVN\n- You can see that our diff files is sitting there\n
• #31: - Next type patch -p0 -i 21997.3.diff \n- This will apply the changes from patch file to your local instance of wordpress\n- It will give you an indication as to whether everything went okay or not\n
• #32: - Then you pull up your local install in the browser and test the changes that were just applied\n- And then go back to the ticket in Trac, and leave a comment stating how you tested it, \n- and whether the patch looks good or not.\n- Try to be as specific as possible (especially if you find something wrong with the patch).\n
• #33: - So let’s say you’ve made a change to you local install of wordpress, and you’d like to submit it as a patch.\n- The first thing you’ll want to do is type SVN up, and hit enter, \n- which will make sure you’re running the latest version of trunk, and ensure that you don’t have any conflicts\n
• #34: - Then run svn status to review the files with changes\n- You’ll see an M next to the wp-admin.css file\n- That means there are modifications to that file\n
• #35: - To review those modifications, you’ll type svn diff\n- This will allow you to review the actual diff of the files that were changed\n- You’ll see a minus sign on the left next to lines that were removed\n- And a plus sign next to new lines that have been added\n
• #36: - To export this diff to a file that can then be uploaded to the ticket, type svn diff > 21997.4.diff\n- The greater than sign exports it to a file\n- 21997 is the Trac ticket ID (this is just best practice)\n- Since this was a modification to an existing patch, I changed .3 to .4\n
• #37: - Then, when you check your local trunk directory, you should see that new .4.diff file\n- \n
• #38: - Go back to the ticket page, and click the “attach file” button\n
• #39: - And upload your new patch in the form that is provided.\n
• #40: - Last, go back to the ticket, and leave a detailed comment as to what was changed, and why.\n
• #41: - That’s all I’ve got for today.\n- Thanks for sticking around for the last session.\n- Any questions?\n