<!-- <?xml version="1.0" ?> <!DOCTYPE chapter PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2-Based Variant V1.1//EN" "dtd/kdex.dtd"> --> <chapter id="contribute"> <title>Contributing</title> <qandaset> <qandaentry> <question> <para>How can I contribute to &kde;?</para> </question> <answer> <para>&kde; is a free software project that lives from voluntary contributions. Everybody is encouraged to contribute to &kde;. Not only programmers are welcome. There are many ways in which you can help to improve &kde;:</para> <itemizedlist> <listitem><para>Test the software.</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Send in bug reports. For more information on this, see <link linkend="bug-report">How do I submit a bug report?</link>.</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Write documentation or help files. You can get some information by visiting the <ulink url="http://i18n.kde.org/teams/doc/">&kde; Editorial Team Home Page</ulink>.</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Translate programs, documentation, and help files. For more information on this, you should visit <ulink url="http://i18n.kde.org">The &kde; Translators' and Documenters' Web Site</ulink>.</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Draw nice icons or compose sound effects. You can visit the <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/artist/index.html">&kde; artists page</ulink> to find out more.</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Write articles and books about &kde;. If you want to help spread the word about &kde;, simply send an email to <email>kde-pr@kde.org</email>. This will get you in touch with the &kde; public relations volunteers.</para></listitem> <listitem><para>Program new &kde; applications. Please refer to <xref linkend="programming"/> for more information.</para></listitem> <listitem><para> Of course, sponsors are also welcome. :-)</para></listitem> </itemizedlist> <para>There are several places to look for more information if you want to get involved in the development. The first step is to subscribe to some of the <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/mailinglists.html">mailing lists</ulink>. You will soon see something that can be improved or added.</para> </answer> </qandaentry> <qandaentry> <question id="bug-report"> <para>How do I submit a bug report?</para> </question> <answer> <para>There is a bug tracking system available at <ulink url="http://bugs.kde.org">http://bugs.kde.org</ulink>. The system features a wizard to submit new bug reports and a list of all known bugs.</para> <para>The easiest way to submit a bug is to select <menuchoice><guimenu>Help</guimenu><guimenuitem>Report Bug...</guimenuitem></menuchoice> from the menu bar of the application with the bug. This will open a small dialog box with a link to the bug tracking system. Please make sure to follow the instructions of the bug reporting wizard.</para> </answer> </qandaentry> <qandaentry> <question id="programming"> <para>I want to program for &kde;. What should I do first?</para> </question> <answer> <para>Everybody is encouraged to develop software for &kde;. What you should do first depends strongly on your experience, ⪚ whether you have already learned C++ or have experience with the &Qt; toolkit and so on.</para> <para>To get into &kde; programming, you will need some basic tools: <application>automake</application>, <application>autoconf</application>, and <application>egcs</application>. You should look to <ulink url="http://developer.kde.org/">http://developer.kde.org/</ulink> for more tips.</para> <para>Another excellent resource for learning &kde; programming is the &Qt; online tutorials. These are installed along with &Qt;. To view them, open <filename>$<envar>QTDIR</envar>/doc/html/index.html</filename> in &konqueror; and bookmark it. The tutorials can be found under "Using Qt". The source code for each lesson can be found in the <filename class="directory">$<envar>QTDIR</envar>/tutorial</filename> directory.</para> <para>There is, however, one thing that everybody interested in programming for &kde; should do: <emphasis>subscribe to the developers mailing list</emphasis>. To subscribe, you have to send an email to <ulink url="mailto:kde-devel-request@kde.org">kde-devel-request@kde.org</ulink> with the subject <userinput>subscribe <replaceable>your_email_address</replaceable></userinput>. <important><para>Please read <link linkend="subscribe">How to subscribe/unsubscribe to these lists</link> carefully. Everything said there applies to the development list as well.</para></important></para> </answer> </qandaentry> <qandaentry> <question> <para>How do I get access to the <acronym>CVS</acronym>?</para> </question> <answer> <para>The &kde; project uses <acronym>CVS</acronym> to develop the core parts of the software. Usually, when you have changed one of the parts (⪚ fixed a bug), and you want to commit this change, the best way is to create a patch against a current snapshot and send this patch to the developer/maintainer of the respective program.</para> <para>If you are doing this more or less regularly, you can ask Stephan Kulow, <email>coolo@kde.org</email> for direct access to the <acronym>CVS</acronym> server. But be aware that more users will slow down <acronym>CVS</acronym> access for all developers, so we want to keep the number of people with direct <acronym>CVS</acronym> access reasonably small. But feel free to ask!</para> </answer> </qandaentry> <qandaentry> <question> <para>I am just curious. Can I have read-only access to the <acronym>CVS</acronym>?</para> </question> <answer> <para>Yes. It is possible to get read-only access to the <acronym>CVS</acronym> repository with <application>cvsup</application> or <application>cvs</application> utility. You can find more information about how to set up <application>cvsup</application> for the &kde; repository from <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/cvsup.html">How to use <application>cvsup</application> to get &kde;</ulink>.</para> <para>In addition, anonymous <acronym>CVS</acronym> service is also available. To find out more about how to set up and use anonymous <acronym>CVS</acronym>, please see <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html">here</ulink>.</para> </answer> </qandaentry> <qandaentry> <question> <para>Are there any <application>cvs</application> mirror sites for &kde;?</para> </question> <answer> <para>Yes. The main &kde; server is normally very busy. Please take a look at <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/cvsupmirrors.html">http://www.kde.org/cvsupmirrors.html</ulink> and <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html">http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html</ulink> for the list of available mirrors.</para> <para> Once you have selected a new <application>cvsup</application> server, simply replace <screen> *default host=cvs.kde.org </screen> with <screen> *default host=cvsup.your.new.host </screen> in your <application>cvsup</application> script.</para> <para> The instructions to change the anoncvs server can be found on <ulink url="http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html">http://www.kde.org/anoncvs.html</ulink>, too. </para> </answer> </qandaentry> <qandaentry> <question> <para>How do I go about translating &kde; programs into my native language?</para> </question> <answer> <para>Look at the <ulink url="http://i18n.kde.org">The &kde; Translators' and Documenters' Web Site</ulink> to see whether your program is already translated (most are). Otherwise you will find information there on how to do it yourself.</para> </answer> </qandaentry> </qandaset> </chapter>
