We're really glad you're reading this and considering contributing to django-helpdesk! As an open source project, we rely on volunteers to improve and grow the project. Welcome!
django-helpdesk is an open-source project and as such contributions from the community are welcomed and encouraged!
Please read these guidelines to get up to speed quickly. If you have any questions, please file an issue ticket on GitHub. Our main project repository is available at:
https://github.com/django-helpdesk/django-helpdesk
If you don't mind testing pre-releases (don't use in production!), we appreciate continuous feedback on the master branch, which is our work toward the next major release. Please file bug reports, and tag the report with the "pre-release" tag.
This is an easy way to get involved that doesn't require programming.
Please fork the project on GitHub, make your changes, and submit a pull request back into the appropriate branch of the django-helpdesk repository.
Short story:
- pull requests for master are for the next major release
- pull requests for a current release should go to appropriate release branch (for example, bugfixes for 0.3 should go to the 0.3 branch.)
Longer story:
In general, our git branching scheme looks like the following.
- master always points to development for the next major release, major new features should go here
- current and past major releases are found in their own branches:
- 0.3 is the branch for the 0.3 release and any bugfix releases
- 0.2.x is the branch for the 0.2 release and any bugfix releases
- 0.1 is the branch for the legacy code; it is no longer supported
We reserve the right to decline a pull request if it is not for the appropriate branch.
Wherever possible please break git commits up into small chunks that are specific to a single bit of functionality. For example, a commit should not contain both new functionality and a bugfix; the new function and the bugfix should be separate commits wherever possible.
Commit messages should also explain what, precisely, has been changed.
All commits should include appropriate new or updated tests; see the Tests section below for more details.
If your changes affect the Django models for django-helpdesk, be aware that your commits should include database schema python scripts; see the Database Schema Changes section below for more details.
Be sure all Python code follows PEP8 conventions.
Ideally, add comments and documentation whenever you touch code.
HTML and Javascript templates should be appropriately indented.
As well as making your normal code changes to models.py, please generate a
Django migration file and commit it with your code. You will want to use a
command similar to the following:
./manage.py migrate helpdesk --auto [migration_name]
Make sure that migration_name is a sensible single-string explanation of
what this migration does, such as add_priority_options or add_basket_table.
This will add a file to the migrations/ folder, which must be committed to
git with your other code changes.
Currently, test coverage is very low. We're working on increasing this, and to make life easier we are using Travis CI (http://travis-ci.org/) for continuous integration. This means that the test suite is run every time a code change is made, so we can try and make sure we avoid basic bugs and other regressions.
As a general policy, we will only accept new feature commits if they are accompanied by appropriate unit/functional tests (that is, tests for the functionality you just added). Bugfixes should also include new unit tests to ensure the bug has been fixed.
More significant code refactoring must also include proper integration or validation tests, to be committed BEFORE the refactoring patches. This is to ensure that the refactored code produces the same results as the previous code base.
Any further integration or validation tests (tests for the entire django-helpdesk application) are not required but greatly appreciated until we can improve our overall test coverage.
Please include tests in the tests/ folder when committing code changes.
If you have any questions about creating or maintaining proper tests, please start a discussion on the GitHub issue tracker at
https://github.com/django-helpdesk/django-helpdesk/issues
We're happy to include any type of contribution! This can be:
- back-end python/django code development
- front-end web development (HTML/Javascript, especially jQuery)
- language translations
- writing improved documentation and demos
More details on each of theses tasks is below.
If you have any questions on contributing, please start a discussion on the GitHub issue tracker at
https://github.com/django-helpdesk/django-helpdesk/issues
Although django-helpdesk has originally been written for the English language, there are already multiple community translations, including Spanish, Polish, German, and Russian. More translations are welcomed!
Translations are handled using the excellent Transifex service which is much easier for most users than manually editing .po files. It also allows collaborative translation. If you want to help translate django-helpdesk into languages other than English, we encourage you to make use of our Transifex project:
http://www.transifex.com/projects/p/django-helpdesk/resource/core/
Once you have translated content via Transifex, please raise an issue on the project Github page and tag it as "translations" to let us know it's ready to import.
All contributions to django-helpdesk must be under the BSD license documented in the LICENSE file in the top-level directory of this project.
By submitting a contribution to this project (in any way: via e-mail, via GitHub pull requests, ticket attachments, etc), you acknowledge that your contribution is open-source and licensed under the BSD license.
If you or your organization does not accept these license terms then we cannot accept your contribution. Please reconsider!