Contribute
From No3wiki
How to contribute to the streber project
There is a lot of stuff you could contribute to the streber project. You don't have to be php-wizard for this. Areas we need help in include:
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Administrative Work...
- Administration
- handling and assigning issues and feature
- P.R.
- Translation / Helping with English
- Documentation
- Online Help / Support
- CMS for streber-pm.org
Administrative help is important because it really costs me a lot of time, which I could invest into programming or documentation. This covers such tasks as forum-administration, responding to bug-reports (ask for clarification, rating, assigning to developers, etc.). Deciding which features have to be implemented first, etc. Administrative work also covers the area of public relations and marketing. Although streber is 'free software' and 'still in beta' some publicity wouldn't harm the project. It has been written to be used. And it fails before starting, if nobody knows about it.
Together with this topic falls the question of a decent project page design. The current solution of a separated wiki, phpBB and a non-CMS pagedesign at www.streber-pm.org is not sufficient.
One of the tasks that would really help the project, is setting up a new CMS-driven page for news and comments. Also the tracker should be moved from streber.pixtur.de to tracker.streber-pm.org.
Streber really lacks documentation. I already made some tests with a video-tutorial to give a short but sufficient introduction into the interface. The problem with this approach is my English: My pronounciation is hardly bearable. One solution that sprang into my mind was making a german version of the tutorials and adding a translation (synchronisation) to other languages later on. If somebody is willing to contribute his or her voice, drop me a mail.
Testing...
- Stability
- Interface Usability
What streber currently needs most is stability and usability. All minor issues sums up to a overall experience of a 'cluttered and non intuitive' interface. We have a very flexible solution here, but without user tests and feedback we are unable to finetune. This 'usabilty for the people' keeps Basecamp out of reach.
Also we need some kind of jury that decides wether a release can be judged as "stable". We need a team of testers (me included), that tests each release on a certain number of plattforms (e.g. combinations Server,php-version, mysql-version, browser). Only after some part of the jury give positive feedback, we can declare a release as stable. I don't really have the power and geduld to think about release cycles.
Programming
Javascript
- AJAX
- context-menus, lists, wiki-editing and menus
AJAX was hyped a little bit to late to find entry into the first interface. With the current experience of other projects and the flexible front-end of streber, making use of AJAX should be straight forward. This will raise streber into a whole new level of interface-design. Although I already have a lot of ideas, what an JS-driven front end could look like, I lack the manpower to implement such. So, if you are a JS-wizard and want to be part of a razor sharp state of the art web-interface project, join the team.
Together with the AJAX-support we should approach some other issues of the front-end. Until now I handled most of the JS-stuff without care, and we really have to work on this side as well.
Programming PHP:
- Tuning interface
- Security Hardening
- Frontend-programming / adding or adjusting "simple" Features
- Backend-programming PHP5, mysql
And last but not least streber is written in php5 to benefit from the large developer community. Although some of the internal parts are probably hard to get into, the front end is pretty much straight forward. Adding new features, db-fields, lists edit functions is not very hard, even of intermediate knowledge of php. There already exists some guides into the source-code and I am glad to explain any open questions.
Some of the points I would consider to be handable even by people new to php5 are:
- special reports and lists for certain purposes (like tasks that have to be approved by a project manager)
- editing multiple tasks at once
- adding validation for certain fields (like emails, telefon-numbers etc.)
If you feel like having some hours per week to spent into this project, I would love to welcome you on board. Drop me a mail with a short profile and I will add you to the tracker and the sourceforge proejct. If you want me to, I can sort out some tasks that are in need and might be a good starting point.
first steps for new team members
thanks for your time, tom, 2006-03-27
