Contributing to OpenSim Creator

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3. Contributing to OpenSim Creator#

If you would like to contribute to OpenSim Creator then thank you 🥰: it’s people like you that make open-source awesome!

3.1. Key Points#

To maximize your chances of success, here’s a few things to keep in mind when contributing to OpenSim Creator:

  1. Read the CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md file in the root of OpenSim Creator’s source repository. Ensure you agree with it. It is a fairly standard document that can be summarized as “don’t be a jerk”.

  2. Give the main developers a “heads up” by adding an issue to the GitHub Issues page, or emailing a developer. Write something that roughly describes what you intend to fix/change. This is very important. This lets us reach an agreement on your contribution before you put effort into it.

  3. Make sure you can build the part of OpenSim Creator that you would like to contribute to. For example, if you plan on contributing to the documentation then you should probably build the documentation locally and ensure that your contribution works (exception: basic things like fixing typos, changing a string, etc. do not require doing this).

  4. Make your changes, ensuring that you try to stick to the style of the existing code. Even if the style is disagreeable (which, in places, it is - but it’s easier for us to fix that later if everything is in one style).

  5. Ensure your contribution works on your local machine. Note: “works” does not necessarily imply “complete”. For UI projects like OpenSim Creator, it is acceptable to submit working, but “incomplete”, features if they provide something people need - provided the contribution doesn’t destabilize other parts of the codebase.

  6. Update CHANGELOG.md with an explanation of your change, if it is significant

  7. Make pull requests (PRs) directly against the main branch. OpenSim Creator does not use separate branches for development, testing, prod, etc. Branches are typically deleted if they are old and no longer up-to-date with main.

  8. If your change potentially (temporarily) breaks a feature in OpenSim Creator, or is extremely experimental, then you should hide it behind a flag, configuration option, UI checkbox, or similar. This is so that your change can be merged + shipped quickly without it “dangling around” on a branch for a large amount of time.

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