CONTRIBUTING.md

Anarchy's contributing guide

You can help contribute to Anarchy in many ways, including

Writing code

• Follow shell scripting best practices (e.g. as described in Google's shell style guide)
• Try to be POSIX compliant
• Use "${variable}" instead of $variable
• Constants (and global variables) should be in UPPER_CASE, other variables should be in lower_case
• Use single square brackets ([ condition ]) for conditionals (e.g. in 'if' statements)
• Write clean and readable code
• Write comments where needed (e.g. explaining functions)
• Explain what arguments a function takes (if any)
• Use different error codes when exiting and explain when they occur at the top of the file
• If you've created a new file or have made a lot of changes (judge this by yourself), you can add a copyright disclaimer below the shebang line and below any other copyright notices (e.g. Copyright (C) Jane Doe <[email protected]>)
• Always line wrap at 80 characters
• Scripts should be named setup-<function> and should not have an extension
• Libraries should always have a .sh extension and should not have a shebang
• Neither scripts nor libraries should be executable (their permissions are set during compilation)
• Use shellscript to error-check your code
• Test your code before submitting a PR (not required if it's a draft)
• Write long and informative commit messages

Translating (updating existing translations)

Anarchy supports multiple languages, most of which need maintainers.

• Make sure to use the UTF-8 encoding
• Don't change the variable names (e.g. intro_msg=)
• Don't remove any occurrence of \n or \n\n (new lines)
• Don't remove any special characters (e.g. $a or quotes)
• Don't edit variables within the text (e.g. /dev/${DRIVE} or ${user})
• Compare the finished file with english.conf
• If you intend to maintain the translation, add yourself as a maintainer at the top of the file (example below)
• If there are existing maintainers, add yourself on a new line below theirs

# Maintainer: John Doe <[email protected]>
# Current Maintainer: Jane Doe <[email protected]>

Comparing language files to one another makes Anarchy more consistent and easier to update in the future.

Translating Anarchy to new languages

• Ask yourself if you're committed enough to translate the whole file (check english.conf for size comparison - ~500 translations)
• Copy the english.conf file and rename it to your language's english name (e.g. portuguese.conf or spanish.conf)
• Update the LANG variable to your language's UTF-8 locale (e.g. sl_SI.UTF-8)
• Read the previous recommendations for existing Anarchy translations