Getting Involved

- Getting involved -

-There are many different levels where people can get involved. The -development of FOP and the related plans and tasks are discussed on -the dev mailing list. Users can help or get issues resolved by -contributing information and examples to the developers. -

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- Get familiar with the Fop related standards -

-At the moment Fop is mainly a tool to render XSL:FO files to pdf. -Therefore if you want to contribute to Fop you should become -familiar with these standards. You can find links under -Resources. -

- Fop's Design -

-The design for FOP is specified under the -Design section. -

-This is where the information on how FOP is developed and designed -internally will be kept. -

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- Subscribe to the fop developers list -

You can subscribe to fop-dev@xml.apache.org by sending an email - to fop-dev-subscribe@xml.apache.org

Sending bug reports and feature requests to the list is a welcome and important contribution to - developing Fop.

Read also the archive - of the discussion list fop-dev to get an idea of the issues being discussed.

- Look at the developer's code using cvs -

Between releases the newest code can be accessed via cvs. To do this you need to install a cvs - client on your computer, if it is not already there. An explanation how to connect to the - Fop source repository can be found at http://xml.apache.org/cvs.html. - An introduction into cvs and the cvs manual can be found in the - reference library.

All changes to the code repository are sent to a special mailing list. After a cvs commit the diffs are automatically sent to this list. You can subscribe - to fop-cvs@xml.apache.org by sending an email to - fop-cvs-subscribe@xml.apache.org. If you want to contribute to the development of Fop you should subscribe, - because it is important that you follow changes being made.

- Contributing code, tests and documentation -

If you want to contribute code (p.e. a bugfix), a test or documentation (p.e. an additional example), please do the following:

1) Make sure your code doesn't break the existing one and that Fop still compiles.

2) Create a file which shows the differences to the existing code.

3) Send this file as an Attachment to fop-dev@xml.apache.org.

One of the committers will test your code and commit it to the code repository.

If you have a test or useful bug test you should read this page.

BTW: The Apache project knows different roles for contributors, namely 'users', 'developers', 'committers' and the 'Project - Management Committee' (An explanation of these roles can be found here).

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- Coding Conventions -

As mentioned in Apache XML Project Guidelines, - all Java Language source code in the repository must be written in conformance to the - Code Conventions - for the Java Programming Language as published by Sun. Additionally we agreed on 4 - spaces (no tabs) for indenting.

If you don't like those conventions, just use your own standards while developing and reformat the source before - committing with a tool like astyle (Artistic Style). -

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