How you can help with SlimServer!

[Dan Sully]

All - while SlimServer is backed by Slim Devices, it is very much fueled by
community support & participation. Here are some areas where you can help:

* Documentation:

- User-centric:

+ I've started to update the Wiki with some more information on
Unicode & Replay Gain functionality. This needs to be fleshed out, and
possibly included in the SlimServer online help.

+ Any new feature or behavior or logic change needs to be documented.

+ List of common How-Tos/Guides: "How to be a beta tester", "How to report a bug".

+ Tagging recommendations & supported tags.

- Developer-centric:

+ Document the major components of SlimServer - database, web, cli, player, buttons, etc.

+ New developer - getting up to speed documentation, short perl intro.

+ Code style guide.

* Automated Test Framework:

+ A very, very basic regression framework has been checked in - this needs a _LOT_ of work.

svn co http://svn.slimdevices.com/repos/slim/trunk/tests

ViewCVS: http://svn.slimdevices.com/trunk/tests

+ Automate the spawning of SlimServer with a portable set of config
files depending on the test, so that automated testing via the Web UI & CLI
can be done. See WWW::Mechanize in CPAN for some thoughts on remote web testing.

* Skin CSS Support:

+ I'll be checking in a basic CSS-ified Default skin that removes the
usage of all/most of the images in the web UI. I am by no means a CSS wizard.
Someone who is can definitely shape things up quickly.

* Everything else:

+ There are a lot of things that aren't on this list, that are in the
software roadmap need to be worked on. This ranges from architecture
discussion to working on the release code to automatically install and start
MySQL, etc.

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.cgi?SoftwareRoadmap

Please - don't be afraid to ask questions. Myself & kdf* can be cranky from
time-to-time, but we really just want all this to work properly for everyone.


* - kdf is _still_ not a Slim Devices employee.

-D
--
"You can usually recover from production flaws...but you can never recover from a bad design".

[tass]

I would love to help.

I'm not big on documentation (naturally, being a developer myself!) but don't have much perl experience at all. I've only had a small look through the source tree which seems to be big - and once I have a free day I'll get into it and hopefully be able to submit some useful patches after not too much time.

[max.spicer]

One real problem with SlimServer is the lack of documentation. There should be a real push to get stuff documented inline, and some strict rules about new code not being commited without it. If people that understand particular files could just add a comment at the top saying roughly what they would do, that would help newcomers immensely. How about a commentathon? Next time you're near a file that you notice isn't documented, spend a minute or so putting something in.

Max

I would love to help.

I'm not big on documentation (naturally, being a developer myself!) but don't have much perl experience at all. I've only had a small look through the source tree which seems to be big - and once I have a free day I'll get into it and hopefully be able to submit some useful patches after not too much time.

[tass]

Next time you're near a file that you notice isn't documented, spend a minute or so putting something in.

That's a nice way to get started actually, a little bit of incentive to actually read the code

[mattybain]

I would love to help, I am actually quite keen to learn PERL (mainly to understand the Various Artists issue). There seems to be a whole raft of resources on www.perl.org . It is all a bit overwhelming. Can anybody recommend a good starting place?

[Dan Sully]

* tass shaped the electrons to say...

>max.spicer Wrote:
>> Next time you're near a file that you notice isn't documented, spend a
>> minute or so putting something in.
>
>That's a nice way to get started actually, a little bit of incentive to
>actually read the code

Great! Anyone should let me know if you want a subversion commit bit!

-D
--
Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.

[Dan Sully]

* mattybain shaped the electrons to say...

>I would love to help, I am actually quite keen to learn PERL (mainly to
>understand the Various Artists issue). There seems to be a whole raft
>of resources on www.perl.org . It is all a bit overwhelming. Can
>anybody recommend a good starting place?

Not sure about online docs just yet (I'll take a look once I've woken up more)

But the O'Reilly books: Learning Perl, Learning Perl Objects, Modules & Packages are good starting points.

-D
--
Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.

[dean]

I heartily recommend the book Learning Perl. Buy this first and
read the whole thing, that's how I got started with Perl when there
was this little script called slimp3.pl that I wanted to understand.

I used to recommend Programming Perl as the second perl boot to buy,
but after reading Perl Best Practices, it's now my choice and I wish
I had been able to read it years ago.




On Oct 31, 2005, at 5:23 AM, mattybain wrote:

>
> I would love to help, I am actually quite keen to learn PERL
> (mainly to
> understand the Various Artists issue). There seems to be a whole raft
> of resources on www.perl.org . It is all a bit overwhelming. Can
> anybody recommend a good starting place?
>
>
> --
> mattybain
>
> "That suit's as sharp as a page of Oscar Wilde witticisms that have
> been
> rolled up into a point, sprinkled with lemon juice and jabbed into
> someone's eye! "
> - Ace, Stoke Me A Clipper
>

[Robin Bowes]

dean blackketter said the following on 31/10/2005 20:25:
>
> I used to recommend Programming Perl as the second perl boot to buy,
> but after reading Perl Best Practices, it's now my choice and I wish I
> had been able to read it years ago.

So do we!

R.
--
http://robinbowes.com

If a man speaks in a forest,
and his wife's not there,
is he still wrong?

[reptile]

I'd love to help too. I'm a developer by trade and have been playing around with perl for a while. The problem I have is I don't know where to start, even with the list! I'm new to open source and don't want to step on anyone's toes by grabbing something that someone else was going to do. Is there a process for assigning bugs or documentation work to people?

Craig

ps. I love Perl Cookbook. It's great when you need an answer to "I wonder how I can do ____ in Perl".

pps. Only recently got my squeezeboxes and absolutely love them. Just wish I had more rooms so I could buy more!