Development/EasyHacks
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Welcome
This page is all about our Easy Hacks project. These hacks have been determined to be great starting points for new developers on the project - when you visit the bug on our bug tracker you will find useful code pointers as well as at least one expert who will be available to help you if you have questions. If you have solved already a number of Easy Hacks you might want to look at our CoreHacks.
Getting Started
The basic flow is to:
- Build LibreOffice,
- find something fun you want to fix,
- hack it up, and
- submit a patch via gerrit for review.
We have made a step-by-step guide that details the process.
Do I have to build LibreOffice?
Building from source is necessary for most but not all of the Easy Hacks. Most modern computers can build LibreOffice, and your feedback on the build process can be helpful to us even if the Easy Hack that you select doesn't require it explicitly.
Hacking Tips
- If you create new files, please use our License Header.
- Please avoid larger reformatting of the code for the time being (except for the tasks listed below) - we're pondering auto/magic ways to do that mid- to long-term.
- If you need to search constructs in the code, there is a code search engine at https://opengrok.libreoffice.org/
Workflow
If the Easy Hack is really quick and easy, 'just do it'. However, if you think it will take you some time, and/or need partitioning (eg. some big, scalable cleanup that many people can help out with), then please use the tools built into Bugzilla to help us manage the task.
Using Bugzilla to Manage Your Bugs
- Create an account
- Search for bug you are attempting to fix
- Assign the relevant task to yourself
- Click 'edit' next to Assigned to, and enter your mail address
- Set bug status to ASSIGNED
- Add a comment that you're starting work on this bug
Workflow Tips
- Please take only one part of the task at a time.
- Please provide updates each week or so, otherwise someone else may take the issue
- If a task has an owner without an update in a week, feel free to notify them that you're taking that on yourself
- If you realize you can't complete a task - please leave a comment on the bug and check the Reset Assignee to default box by the Assigned to field.
These bugs are easy! I don't want to bother with/can fix them all!
Even if you are deeply skilled, please consider doing one little easy hack, to get used to the process. After that, you are invited to move on up to the more difficult tasks, leaving some of the easy tasks to others so they can get involved and achieve change themselves.
The quicker you move up the pile, the more quickly you can be making large scale, user-visible changes and improvements to LibreOffice - of which these easy hacks are just the tip of a very interesting iceberg.
What happens once you have submitted your patch via gerrit
- Add the person who provided the code pointers as a reviewer for your patch
- Your patch will be reviewed and merged
- You will receive a notification via email
- You can now go back to the bug and change its status to RESOLVED / FIXED
Good luck!
Lists of Easy Hacks
Please choose an easy hack that fits you :-)
- A list of EasyHacks by Required Skill (and then by Difficulty)
- A list of EasyHacks by Difficulty only
- A list of EasyHacks by Topic
- Warning: the above pages are generated by inter-server queries. If you experience a timeout, please reload the page.
More Information
- Get Involved in Development
- Bugzilla Categorization of EasyHacks
- For Developers: