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Beta testing new features is always appreciated and very helpfull. One does not need to be a developer to pull code from SVN and compile it - but you do need to be aware that going to SVN code implies a certain responsibility on the user's part to debug their own problems, file useful bugreports, and be able to downgrade or upgrade accordingly to fix issues. | Beta testing new features is always appreciated and very helpfull. One does not need to be a developer to pull code from SVN and compile it - but you do need to be aware that going to SVN code implies a certain responsibility on the user's part to debug their own problems, file useful bugreports, and be able to downgrade or upgrade accordingly to fix issues. | ||
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== Creating themes for MythTV== | == Creating themes for MythTV== |
Revision as of 16:20, 18 June 2008
Did you know you to can help contributing to MythTV?
Everyone has one or more skills to help improving MythTV. You just have to remember that MythTV is a combination of technical and non-technical efforts. Independent from your skills, there is always something you can do to help make MythTV even beter than it is right now.
Besides more developers we also need people to work on manuals and documentation, themes, wiki pages, translations and more. Join us making MythTV even better than it already is.
The following list contains a selection where we need to work on for the improvement of MythTV. Choose how you can help best.
Contents
- 1 Things you can do to help
- 1.1 Software developing
- 1.2 Documenting new and existing features
- 1.3 Improving the manual
- 1.4 Maintaining the Wiki (this site)
- 1.5 Improving the screenshots page
- 1.6 Promoting MythTV
- 1.7 Internationalizing / translating
- 1.8 Testing MythTV
- 1.9 Creating themes for MythTV
- 1.10 Building plugins
- 1.11 Technical documentation
Things you can do to help
Software developing
Required skills: light to heavy understanding of programming
Of course there is enough software development to do. The work varies from debugging, optimizing existing code to developing new features. You can find everything you want to know in the Development guide
Documenting new and existing features
Required skills: familiar with using MythTV
Documentation often lags behind features. The mythtv-commits mailing list provides information on what has been coded into the system recently and updating documentation here or in the official docs on mythtv.org is a welcome contribution.
Improving the manual
Required skills: non technical
The user manual helps people to start and work with MythTV. There's a project underway to create a User Manual which is starting to pick up steam. If you know something about MythTV, you can help extending and updating the manual. You can find the manual here.
The manual is available via the wiki pages, if you are not familiar with using a wiki than you can learn it in no-time here
Maintaining the Wiki (this site)
Required skills: non technical
If you are not familiar with using a wiki than you can learn it in no-time here.
You can help writing and editing material right here on the Wiki.
- Help completing pages that are marked incomplete. You can find an complete list of incomplete pages here.
- Review and update existing pages
- Look around and improve the wiki structure. By improving the Structure you help people finding the right information and makes or easier to keep things simple, organized and up-to-date.
Improving the screenshots page
Required skills: non technical
Screenshots are important for new users to get familiar with MythTV. The Screenshots page needs to be fleshed out, preferably illustrating the default theme as well as a couple of others, and at least one widescreen. Where possible it would be good to add short notes beside the screenshots to help visitors understand them correctly.
Promoting MythTV
Required skills: non technical, basic internet usage.
You can help bringing MythTV to the rest of us in various ways. Some examples are:
- write articles about MythTV
- help new MythTV users with their problems in forums, chatrooms (e.g. IRC), etc.
- Promote MythTV in news groups as a Mediacenter solution (or HTPC). A lot of people just don't know about the existence of MythTV and the possibilities.
- Post MythTV in binairy-newsgroups as a alternative to the illegal mediacenter downloads (or one of the easy to install MythTV_distros).
- remind people about the fact you don't need a expensive windows licence to use MythTV.
- suggest MythTV as a good alternative in mediacenter forums.
- Etc.
Internationalizing / translating
Required skills: non technical, understands one or more languages
If you have language skills, you can work on internationalizing/translating the product. This is needed in the core system as well as the modules.
Testing MythTV
Required skills: non technical, some understanding of MythTV
Beta testing new features is always appreciated and very helpfull. One does not need to be a developer to pull code from SVN and compile it - but you do need to be aware that going to SVN code implies a certain responsibility on the user's part to debug their own problems, file useful bugreports, and be able to downgrade or upgrade accordingly to fix issues.
How to pull code from SVN and compile it:
Creating themes for MythTV
Required skills: Light technical knowledge, some feeling for layout and design
If you are interested in creating a new theme, than you can find all you need to know in the following pages:
- theme development guide - All about creating new themes.
- Theme menu development guide - how to work with Theme menus.
- Theme Category page - Example themes and more links to relevant pages.
Building plugins
Required skills: Light to heavy programming knowledge
You can find more information about how you can build your own plug-in for MythTV (or convert and existing program)in the Plug-in_developers_guide
In general people find this a nice way to start developing on MythTV.
Technical documentation
Required skills: Some understanding of programming
Documentation often lags behind... help keeping this up-to-date.
Incomplete, needs to be expanded. Please help to fill the gaps or discuss the issue on the talk page