Contributing to Okular

[Dileep Sankhla]

Hi Kanchan,

Welcome to the project Okular! KDE Community greets you :)

1. You should have an intermediate programming experience in C++ ranging
from basic variables and iterations to class and objects. If you know about
the basic constructs in C++ including functions then you can begin to
contribute! You can learn about the classes and objects, templates etc by
going through the quick tutorials when required as on the way. I would
suggest you to follow a cpp tutorial online and learn by coding the samples
on the way. Compile and build your code from the terminal using g++ and/or
make. If you want to use an IDE, use eclipse.

2. Regarding Qt, the Qt docs are apt. You should only know the mechanism of
signals and slots which you can learn here [0]. This should be done after
gaining some experience in C++. Rest, you can search for the functions and
their signatures and return types on the docs.
Do some sample Qt programming in the latest Qt 5 using QtCreator IDE.

3. Use Linux with KDE desktop environment installed. Don't use windows. The
best OS, in my opinion, is kubuntu. Forget the mouse and the GUI and work
on the terminal. Use the commands frequently, don't memorize them and
eventually you will get used to them. You can google for the commands
anytime but also try to notice what and how it is doing.

4. Learn git. Install git into your system and learn the basics of commits,
branches, rebase etc. A quick overview of git is here [1]. You should read
the first 3 chapters of this book [2].

5. Learn a bit about cmake and how to build the projects using cmake. The
best tutorial is on its official website [2]. Build a sample Qt project
using cmake.

6. Now after going through all of them, which I think would take a couple
of weeks for the absolute beginner, it's your time to build Okular from the
source. This is your first task towards contributing to Okular. Follow [4].
If stuck, message on #okular channel on IRC freenode or send a quick mail
here.

7. After building okular from the source, your next task is to pick up a
junior job. Go to [5], create an account, search for the junior jobs in
Okular and begin with hacking into the codebase. Submit your first patch on
[6].

Hope it helps!

Cheers
Dileep


[0] http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/signalsandslots.html
[1] https://try.github.io/
[2] https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2
[3] https://cmake.org/cmake-tutorial
[4] https://okular.kde.org/download.php#okular
[5] bugs.kde.org
[6] http://phabricator.kde.org

On Sat, Aug 4, 2018 at 7:07 PM Kanchan K <kanchankarippara at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
> My name is Kanchan.I have been using Okular for a while now.As I'm also a
> developer,I thought I would try my hand on contributing to Okular.
>
> I have mostly been a web developer so far,so I do not have much experience
> with C++ and I have never done any Qt development.
> It would be helpful if someone would suggest some other tasks which I
> could start with.
>
> Thanks,
> Kanchan K
>
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