flare/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing

Contributions to Flare are always welcome. There are many different ways you can contribute, this document will show you most of these ways and what you should keep in mind.

We are interested in getting to know our contributors and are often around to discuss the state and the future of Flare, be it something minor, or larger visions. Feel free to join our Matrix channel and talk with us! This is also a good place to ask some questions or report smaller issues.

Note that the GNOME Code of Conduct applies to this project, therefore, be nice to each other.

Translation

This is probably the easiest way to contribute to Flare. Just head over to Weblate and start translating. If you are unfamiliar with Weblate, make sure to read their documentation on how to translate a project.

Open Issues

Issues are a good way to tell me problems you are having with the applications or things that you feel are missing or might be improved. There are a few things to keep in mind with issues.

• Use the correct template: This project defines a few different templates (e.g. "Feature Request", "Error") that you can use for different types of issues. Please only use the default template if you think no other template matches.
• Fill out all information in the template: For me to re-create your setup, it is important that you fill out all information that is asked for in the issue (e.g. your current version, or how you installed it).
• Fill out the logs if you think they are relevant: If the issue template asks for logs and you think that might help, please consider adding them. But note that logs can contain sensitive information. Please look through the logs and censor things before pasting into the template (running the script here should censor your logs for you). If you don't feel comfortable censoring your own logs, you can also send me a Matrix direct message to @schmiddi:matrix.org if I ask for logs.
• Check for duplicated issues: Try to use the search-feature if you can find similar issues like you are having. If there is already such an issue, consider giving it a thumbs-up or commenting more details on that issue, but don't create a new issue.
• Know how to write a good issue: Read e.g. https://wiredcraft.com/blog/how-we-write-our-github-issues/ (also applies pretty much got GitLab)

Write Code

If you feel comfortable enough writing code, you can also submit your changes directly via a merge request. Here are a few pointers that might help write the code:

Compilation

GNOME Builder

You should be able to directly clone, compile and run Railway using GNOME Builder. Note that if you installed GNOME Builder as a Flatpak, it cannot automatically install the dependencies Railway requires; you need to manually install them in that case using:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists gnome-nightly https://nightly.gnome.org/gnome-nightly.flatpakrepo  # Add the GNOME nightly repository, see <https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Nightly>
flatpak install org.gnome.Sdk//master
flatpak install org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.rust-stable//23.08

Linux

Compile Flare using the following commands:

meson setup build -Dprofile=development   # Run once before all changes you make. Substitute "development" for "default" for compiling for release.
meson compile -C build   # Run every time you want to test your changes
GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR=./build/data/ RUST_LOG=flare=trace ./build/target/debug/flare   # Run your locally compiled application with some logging

This also requires installation of the dependencies from your package manager. Meson will inform you about any missing packages. Note that Flare ties to keep up-to-date with its dependencies, this might mean that the dependencies provided by fixed-release distros may be outdated. In that case, use one of the other ways of compilation mentioned below.

Flatpak via fenv

As an alternative, fenv allows you to set up a flatpak environment from the command line and execute commands in that environment.

First, install fenv:

# Clone the project somewhere on your system
git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/ZanderBrown/fenv.git

# Move into the folder
cd fenv

# Install fenv with Cargo
cargo install --path .

You can now discard the fenv directory if you want.

After that, move into the directory where you cloned Flare and set up the project:

# Set up the flatpak environment
fenv gen build-aux/de.schmidhuberj.Flare.Devel.json

# Launch a shell inside the build environment
fenv shell

You can now follow the compilation phase for GNU/Linux

Some useful documentation

The following documentation might help:

• GTK Book: General GTK-development.
• presage: The backend library used to interact with Signal.

Things to keep in mind

• Make sure the code passes some basic checks (cargo check).
• Make sure the code is properly formatted (cargo fmt).
• Reach out to me for bigger changes, either in an issue or via Matrix.
• Fill out the GitLab merge request template.
• Optional but encouraged: Check for new warnings in cargo clippy.
• Always feel free to ask questions or request some help.