Contributing

ElikoPy is an open source project, meaning we have the challenge of limited resources. We are grateful for any support that you can offer. Helping other users, raising issues, helping write documentation, or contributing codes are all ways to help!

Raise an Issue

For general bugs/issues, you can open an issue at the GitHub repo.

Write Documentation

We (like almost all open source software providers) have a documentation dilemma… We tend to focus on the code features and functionality before working on documentation.

You can contribute to the documentation by raising an issue to suggest an improvement or by sending a pull request on our repository.

Contribute to the code

We use the traditional GitHub Flow to develop. This means that you fork the main repo, create a new branch to make changes, and submit a pull request (PR) to the master branch.

Step 1. Fork the repo

To contribute to ElikoPy, you should obtain a GitHub account and fork the ElikoPy repository. Once forked, clone your fork of the repo to your computer. (Obviously, you should replace your-username with your GitHub username.)

$ git clone https://github.com/your-username/elikopy.git && \
    cd elikopy/

Step 2. Checkout a new branch

Branches are a way of isolating your features from the main branch. Given that we’ve just cloned the repo, we will probably want to make a new branch from master in which to work on our new feature. Lets call that branch new-feature:

$ git checkout master && \
    git checkout -b new-feature

Note

You can always check which branch you are in by running git branch.

Step 3. Make your changes

On your new branch, go nuts! Make changes, test them, and when you are happy commit the changes to the branch:

$ git add file-changed1 file-changed2...

$ git commit -m "what changed?"

This commit message is important - it should describe exactly the changes that you have made. Good commit messages read like so:

$ git commit -m "changed function preproc in core.py to output new mask to fix #2"

$ git commit -m "updated docs about MF to close #10"

The tags close #10 and fix #2 are referencing issues that are posted on the upstream repo where you will direct your pull request. When your PR is merged into the master branch, these messages will automatically close the issues, and further, they will link your commits directly to the issues they intend to fix. This will help future maintainers understand your contribution, or (hopefully not) revert the code back to a previous version if necessary.

Step 4. Push your branch to your fork

When you are done with your commits, you should push your branch to your fork (and you can also continuously push commits here as you work):

$ git push origin new-feature

Note that you should always check the status of your branches to see what has been pushed (or not):

$ git status

Step 5. Submit a Pull Request

Once you have pushed your branch, then you can go to your fork (in the web GUI on GitHub) and submit a Pull Request. Regardless of the name of your branch, your PR should be submitted to the ElikoPy master branch. Submitting your PR will open a conversation thread for the maintainers of ElikoPy to discuss your contribution. At this time, the continuous integration that is linked with the code base will also be executed. If there is an issue, or if the maintainers suggest changes, you can continue to push commits to your branch and they will update the Pull Request.

Step 6. Keep your branch in sync

Cloning the repo will create an exact copy of the ElikoPy repository at that moment. As you work, your branch may become out of date as others merge changes into the upstream master. In the event that you need to update a branch, you will need to follow the next steps:

$ git remote add upstream https://github.com/Hyedryn/elikopy.git && # to add a new remote named "upstream" \
  git checkout master && # or another branch to be updated \
  git pull upstream master && \
  git push origin master && # to update your fork \
  git checkout new-feature && \
  git merge master