Before you open a new issue or ask a question in chat, you must read these guidelines. If it is evident from your issue that you failed to research your question properly, your issue may be closed without being answered.
There are a few common stumbling blocks that new users face when setting up UserFrosting for the first time. If you are new to the current version of UserFrosting, please first look at the basic requirements and installation instructions.
If you don't find what you're looking for in the troubleshooting page, then please check the wiki and existing issues, both opened and closed. Your question may have already been asked and answered before!
You can also search for help on Stack Overflow or in our Forums. In addition to the tags for the components that UF builds upon, such as Slim, Twig, Eloquent, jQuery Validate, Select2, there is now a UserFrosting tag as well.
There are also tags for the utilities upon which UserFrosting depends, such as Composer and Git.
In general, the Github issue tracker should only be used for bug reports and feature requests. If you're just having trouble getting something to work, you should ask on Stack Overflow or in our Forums instead. Tag your question with the userfrosting tag, and optionally with any tags specific to the relevant underlying technologies, such as slim, twig, eloquent, composer, etc. You should also mention the version of UserFrosting that you are using.
After posting a question on Stack Overflow or in our Forums, please link to it in chat. This will ensure that more people see it, and provide a place where we can discuss and help clarify your question.
On Github, Chat, and Stack Overflow, please keep in mind the following:
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Remember that courtesy and proper grammar go a long way. Please take the time to craft a precise, polite issue. We will do our best to help, but remember that this is an open-source project - none of us are getting paid a salary to develop this project, or act as your personal support hotline 😉
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Report any errors in detail. Vague issues like "it doesn't work when I do this" are not helpful. Show that you have put some effort into identifying the cause of the error.
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There are three main places where you may find error messages:
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Backend (PHP-related) fatal errors: in your PHP error log. This is usually a file called
php_error_logor something like that. In XAMPP, the default location of this file isXAMPP/xamppfiles/logs/. For other web hosting platforms, please consult the documentation or do a quick Google search (i.e. "where is the php error log in _____"). Some web hosts may provide a special interface for accessing the php error log, through ssh, cpanel, etc. Please ask them directly for help with this. -
Non-fatal PHP errors will be logged in your UserFrosting error log. Look for your
app/logs/errors.logfile. -
Frontend (Javascript-related) errors: in your browser's Javascript console. See this guide to using your browser console.
You should also try testing your code in a local development environment, to separate code-related issues from server issues. In general, we recommend that you install a local development server on your computer, rather than testing your code directly on the production server. This means you can test your code directly on your own computer, making development faster and without the risk of exposing sensitive information to the public. We recommend installing XAMPP if you don't already have a local server set up.
We welcome your technical expertise! But first, please join us in chat to discuss your proposed changes/fixes/enhancements before you get started. At least one member of our development team will usually be around.
Please also be sure to read our style guidelines.
When it's time to integrate changes, our git flow more or less follows http://nvie.com/posts/a-successful-git-branching-model/.
The current release or release candidate. Always numbered as major.minor.revision, possibly with an -alpha, -beta or -RC extension as well. Commits should never be send directly on this branch.
Contains the next bug fix release, typically matching the next revision version. Any changes not introducing a breaking change can be committed to this branch. Always numbered as major.minor.revision.
When ready, changes should be merged into both master and develop.
Contains breaking changes that will need to wait for the next version to be integrated. Typically matched the next minor version. Always numbered as major.minor.x.
When ready, changes should be merged into both master and hotfix.
New features that introduce some breaking changes or incomplete code should be committed in a separate feature-{name} branch.
When ready, the branch should be squashed-merged (guide) into develop (or hotfix if it doesn't introduce a breaking change).
After every release, the hotfix branch (and possibly develop, for minor/major releases) should immediately be version-bumped. That way, new changes can be accumulated until the next release.
When a new version is created, the version number need to be changed in app/define.php. CHANGELOG.md should also be updated and the associated tag should be created on Github.
During alpha/beta/RC, a release candidate always sits on the master branch. During the alpha/beta phase, major changes can still be integrated into master from develop. However, this should bump the revision number instead of the minor/major number. During RC, only hotfixes can be merged into master.
Issues are used as a todo list. Each issue represent something that needs to be fixed, added or improved. Be sure to assign issues to yourself when working on something so everyones knows this issue is taken care of.
Issues are tagged to represent the feature or category it refers to. We also have some special tags to help organize issues. These includes:
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good first issue: If this is your first time contributing to UserFrosting, look for thegood first issuetag. It's associated with easier issues anyone can tackle. -
up-for-grabs: Theses issues have not yet been assigned to anybody. Look for theses when you want to start working on a new issue. -
needs discussion: This issue needs to be discussed with the dev team before being implemented as more information is required, questions remain or a higher level decision needs to be made. -
needs more info: More information is required from the author of the issue.
In order to keep a clear roadmap, milestones are used to track what is happening and what needs to be done. Milestones are used to classify problems by:
- Things that need to be done ASAP
- Things we are doing right now
- Things we will probably do soon
- Things we probably will not do soon
Things that need to be done ASAP: this is the highest priority and this milestone should always be empty. Issues related to important bug fixes should be set on this milestone immediately. The milestone always refers to the next version of revision, also known as the next bugfix version.
Things we are doing right now: this is the "main" milestone we are currently working on. Usually represents the next minor version, but may also represent the next major version when the focus is on the next major release.
Things we’ll probably do soon: It's a "Next Tasks" milestone. These tasks will be addressed in the near future, but not close enough for the next version. Usually represents the second minor revision and the next major release.
Things we probably won’t do soon: We refer to these issues and sometimes look through them, but they are easy to ignore and sometimes intentionally ignored. Represent issues without milestones that do not have a defined timeframe.
To maintain a clear history of progress on each milestone, milestones must be closed when completed and the corresponding version released. A new milestone must then be created for the next release. In addition, the milestone version must be updated when new versions are released.
The Learn Documentation should always be updated along side code changes.
Changes to the learn repository should follow the same logic as the main repository, ie. any changes applied to the hotfix branch should be documented in the learn hotfix branch. This also apply to feature-* branches.
Additionally, the learn repository can have dev-* for learn specific features and fixes.
To build the API documentation, install phpDocumentor globally and then run from the UserFrosting root :
phpdoc
The resulting documentation will be available in api/.
PHP-CS-Fixer can be used to automatically fix PHP code styling. UserFrosting provides a project specific configuration file (.php_cs) with a set of rules reflecting our style guidelines. This tool should be used before submitting any code change to assure the style guidelines are met. Every sprinkles will also be parsed by the fixer.
PHP-CS-Fixer is automatically loaded by Composer and can be used from the UserFrosting root directory :
app/vendor/bin/php-cs-fixer fix
If you are using Atom, be sure to checkout theses useful packages :
- Docblockr : Used to generate documentation block.
- php-ide-serenata : Integrates Serenata as PHP IDE, providing autocompletion, code navigation, refactoring, signature help, linting and annotations.