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This document provides information for current and prospective developers of software projects hosted by
AmiDaniel.com.
1. Overview Developer is a fairly broad term that can be applied to a variety of individuals involved in AmiDaniel.com software projects. At present time, AmiDaniel.com hosts two major open-source projects: VandalProof and WikiMonitor, and both of these software projects are maintained by mulitple volunteer developers. In order to facilitate the development of these projects, access to certain areas of these projects is restricted to certain individuals who have shown themselves to be competent and trustworthy. Back to top. 2. Bug Tracker If you'd like to begin contributing to AmiDaniel.com software projects, the best place to start is with the Bug Tracker. The Bug Tracker is open to everyone, and it can be accessed at bugs.amidaniel.com. From here, you can let the development team know of any bugs you've found in the software, suggest new features, and offer software patches and fixes. Certain individuals may, upon request, be given developer or administrative access to the bug tracker, which allows them to change bug status, close bug reports, merge bug reports, and other related tasks. Back to top. 3. phpCollab PhpCollab is a restricted area of the site for development coordination. Regular source bundles will be compiled and made available here, such that even developers without SVN access can easily compile applications, make changes, and submit those changes for approval. This area is also used to coordinate the beta-testing of new software applications and new features added to existing software applications long before builds are made available to the public. PhpCollab accounts will be given on request to users who participate frequently on the bug tracker and other areas of projects, and who have shown themselves to be competent and trustworthy. At present time, only the VP project is being coordinated through phpCollab, and if you would like access to that project, please follow the instructions here. Applicants for the WikiMonitor project will be requested shortly. Back to top. 4. SVN All projects currently hosted by AmiDaniel.com are developed using the Subversion versioning control system. This system allows changes to the software to be thoroughly logged and monitored, as well as making coordinated development far simpler. The SVN repository is visible to the public at amidaniel.com/viewvc; however, only a limited number of individuals have the ability to checkout and commit files to the repository. Developers with SVN access are, therefore, the only ones capabable of applying software patches submitted to them by others and making changes to the actual code of the software. Full releases of the software will be compiled using the code in this repository. Write access to the SVN repository is given only to the most trustworthy and competent programmers, who have demonstrated their ability through extensive contributions to phpCollab, the bug tracker, and other areas of the concerned projects. If you believe you are one such person, please send an email to cannon _dot_ danielc _at_ gmail _dot_ com with
your phpCollab username, your real name, your preferred SSH username, and your preferred password. This password should be
substantially different from your phpCollab password, and it must consist of at least 6 characters, of which at least one must be
uppercase, one must be lower case, and one must be numerical. I will run a password cracker frequently, and if I am able
to guess your password with it, or if I otherwise believe that your account has become comprimised, your account will be
suspended.
If your request for an SVN account is approved, it will take a few days before the account goes live. Once it does, you will receive an email with your account details. To begin using your SVN account, you must first download an SVN client. An excellent client is SmartSVN, which can be downloaded here. The instructions here will assume that you are using SmartSVN. Once you have installed the client, run it and select "Check out a project from a repository". In the next prompt, click the "Manage..." button at the bottom of your repository profile list. Then, select "Add...", and create the repository profile with the following details:
You can then proceed to the checkout screen, select the module to check out, and specify where on your local computer you want the checked-out module to be stored. The modules available for checkout are all stored under "trunk" (i.e., "trunk/VP"). Now that the module has been checked out, you can make changes to the files locally, and then commit these changes back to the repository using your client. You should make frequent commits so as to avoid conflicts (which can be a pain to resolve) while you are editing the files, and before you begin editing the files on you computer, be sure to "Update" the files from the repository. Updating frequently ensures that your files are always up to date, and committing frequently ensures that the repository, and thus the other SVN users, are also up to date. In addition to SVN access, SVN users will also get shell access to the server and a limited (typically 5MB) amount of server space, to be used for creating web pages about yourself and your involvment in the projects. There are a variety of methods to upload and modify files on the server. One such method is to connect with an ftp client to ftp://<YOURUSERNAME>@amidaniel.com; the other method is to connect using an ssh client. Everything placed in your public_html folder will be accessible at http://amidaniel.com/devs/YOURUSERNAME. Your public_html file will originally have an "index.html" file in it, which will be formatted according to the themes of the site. You should attempt to maintain this style when editing it, to ensure consistency with the rest of the site. All material in your webspace should be tasteful (or at least amusing...) and related to the project--the server administrator reserves the right to delete and modify anything in your webspace at will and furthermore reserves ownership over such material as well. Upon request, SVN users may also obtain an amidaniel.com e-mail or e-mail forwarding account that can be accessed at amidaniel.com/webmail. Back to top. |