<h1>How To Contribute And Get Help<aclass="headerlink"href="#how-to-contribute-and-get-help"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>If you cannot find what you are looking for in the documentation, here’s what to do:</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li><p>If you need help, want to start a discussion or get some input on something
you are working on, make a post to the <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/discussions">discussions forum</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>If you want more direct discussions with developers and other users, drop
into our very friendly <aclass="reference external"href="https://discord.com/invite/AJJpcRUhtF">Discord channel</a>.</p></li>
<li><p>If you think the documentation is not clear enough, create a <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/issues">documentation issue</a></p></li>
<li><p>If you have trouble with a missing feature or a problem you think is a bug,
<aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/issues">request or report it</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<sectionid="community-and-spreading-the-word">
<h2>Community and Spreading the word<aclass="headerlink"href="#community-and-spreading-the-word"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Being active and helpful in the <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/discussions">forums</a> or <aclass="reference external"href="https://discord.com/invite/AJJpcRUhtF">chat</a> is already a big
help.</p>
<p>Consider writing about Evennia on your blog or in your favorite (relevant)
forum. Write a review somewhere (good or bad, we like feedback either way). Rate
it on listings. Talk about it to your friends … that kind of thing.</p>
<p>Evennia depends heavily on good documentation and we are always looking for
extra eyes and hands to improve it. Even small things such as fixing typos are a
great help!</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li><p>Easiest is to just <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/issues">report dicumentation issues</a> as you find them. If
we don’t know about them, we can’t fix them!</p></li>
<li><p>If you want to help edit the docs directly, <aclass="reference internal"href="Contributing-Docs.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">check here</span></a>
on how to do it.</p></li>
<li><p>If you have knowledge to share, how about writing a new <aclass="reference internal"href="Howto/Howto-Overview.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">Tutorial</span></a>?</p></li>
<h2>Helping with code<aclass="headerlink"href="#helping-with-code"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>If you find bugs, or have a feature-request, <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/issues">make an issue</a> for it. If
it’s not in an issue, the issue will most likely be forgotten.</p>
<p>Even if you don’t feel confident with tackling a <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/issues">bug or feature</a>, just
correcting typos, adjusting formatting or simply <em>using</em> the thing and reporting
when stuff doesn’t make sense helps us a lot.</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li><p>The code itself should follow Evennia’s <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/blob/master/CODING_STYLE.md">Code style guidelines</a> both
for code and documentation. You should write code for that others can read an understand.</p></li>
<li><p>Before merging, your code will be reviewed. Merging of your code into Evennia
is not guaranteed. Be ready to receive feedback and to be asked to make
corrections or fix bugs or any documentation issues and possibly tests (this
is normal and nothing to worry about).</p></li>
</ul>
<sectionid="using-a-forked-reposity">
<h3>Using a Forked reposity<aclass="headerlink"href="#using-a-forked-reposity"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>The most elegant way to contribute code to Evennia is to use GitHub to create a
<em>fork</em> of the Evennia repository and make your changes to that. Refer to the
<aclass="reference internal"href="Coding/Version-Control.html#forking-evennia"><spanclass="std std-doc">Forking Evennia</span></a> version control instructions
for detailed instructions.</p>
<p>Once you have a fork set up, you can not only work on your own game in a
separate branch, you can also commit your fixes to Evennia itself.</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li><p>Make separate branches for all Evennia additions you do - don’t edit your
local <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">master</span></code> or <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">develop</span></code> branches directly. It will make your life a lot
easier.</p></li>
<li><p>If you have a change that you think is suitable for the main Evennia
repository, issue a <aclass="reference external"href="https://github.com/evennia/evennia/pulls">Pull Request</a>. This will let Evennia
devs know you have stuff to share.</p></li>
<li><p>Bug fixes should generally be done against the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">master</span></code> branch of Evennia,
while new features/contribs should go into the <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">develop</span></code> branch. If you are
unsure, just pick one and we’ll figure it out.</p></li>
<h3>Making an Evennia contrib<aclass="headerlink"href="#making-an-evennia-contrib"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Evennia has a <aclass="reference internal"href="Contribs/Contrib-Overview.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">contrib</span></a> directory which contains
user-shared code organized by category. You can contribute anything that you
think may be useful to another dev, also highly game-specific code. A contrib
must always be added via a forked respository.</p>
<sectionid="guidelines-for-making-a-contrib">
<h4>Guidelines for making a contrib<aclass="headerlink"href="#guidelines-for-making-a-contrib"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<ul>
<li><p>If you are unsure about if your contrib idea is suitable or sound, <em>ask in
discussions or chat before putting any work into it</em>. We are, for example,
unlikely to accept contribs that require large modifications of the game
directory structure.</p></li>
<li><p>If your code is intended <em>primarily</em> as an example or to show a
concept/principle rather than a working system, you <em>can</em> add to the
<codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">contribs/tutorials/</span></code> subfolder, but consider if it may be better to instead
write a new tutorial doc page.</p></li>
<li><p>The contribution should preferably work in isolation from other contribs (only
make use of core Evennia) so it can easily be dropped into use. If it does
depend on other contribs or third-party modules, these must be clearly
Detailed installation instructions for using the contrib (required)
<spanclass="gu">## Usage</span>
<spanclass="gu">## Examples</span>
etc.
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The credit and first paragraph-summary will be used on the index page. Every
contrib’s readme must contain an installation instruction. See existing contribs
for help.</p>
</li>
<li><p>If possible, try to make contribution as genre-agnostic as possible and assume
your code will be applied to a very different game than you had in mind when creating it.</p></li>
<li><p>To make the licensing situation clear we assume all contributions are released
with the same <aclass="reference internal"href="Licensing.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">license as Evennia</span></a>. If this is not possible
for some reason, talk to us and we’ll handle it on a case-by-case basis.</p></li>
<li><p>Your contribution must be covered by <aclass="reference internal"href="Coding/Unit-Testing.html"><spanclass="doc std std-doc">unit tests</span></a>. Put
your tests in a module <codeclass="docutils literal notranslate"><spanclass="pre">tests.py</span></code> under your contrib folder - Evennia will
find them automatically.</p></li>
<li><p>In addition to the normal review process, it’s worth noting that merging a
contrib means the Evennia project takes on the responsibility of maintaining
and supporting it. For various reasons this may be deemed beyond our manpower.</p></li>
<li><p>If your code were to <em>not</em> be accepted for some reason, you can ask us to
instead link to your repo from our link page so people can find your code that
way.</p></li>
</ul>
</section>
</section>
</section>
<sectionid="donations">
<h2>Donations<aclass="headerlink"href="#donations"title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Evennia is a free, open-source project and any monetary donations you want to
offer are <em>completely voluntary</em>. See it as a way of showing appreciation by
dropping a few coins in the cup.</p>
<ulclass="simple">
<li><p>You can support Evennia as an <aclass="reference external"href="https://www.patreon.com/griatch">Evennia patreon</a>. A patreon donates a
(usually small) sum every month to show continued support.</p></li>
<li><p>If a monthly donation is not your thing, you can also show your appreciation
by doing a <aclass="reference external"href="https://www.paypal.com/donate?token=zbU72YdRqPgsbpTw3M_4vR-5QJ7XvUhL9W6JlnPJw70M9LOqY1xD7xKGx0V1jLFSthY3xAztQpSsqW9n">one-time donation</a> (this is a PayPal link but you don’t need
