General Statement This file is intended to convey the current efforts, priorities and needs of the codebase. It is for anyone looking for a way to start contributing. While this is biased towards developers, anyone can contribute, and everyone is encouraged to do so. Here are many ways to contribute that may not be immediately obvious to you: - Use Taskwarrior, become familiar with it, and make suggestions. There are always ongoing discussions about new features and changes to existing features. Join us in the forums. - Join us in the #taskwarrior IRC channel on freenode.net. Some great ideas, suggestions, testing and discussions have taken place there. It is also the quickest way to get help, or confirm a bug. - Review documentation: there are man pages, online articles, tutorials and so on, and these may contain errors, or they may not convey ideas in the best way. Perhaps you can help improve it. Contact us - documentation is a separate effort from the codebase, and includes all web sites. - Take a look at the bug database, and help triage the bug list. This is a review process that involves confirming bugs, providing additional data, information or analysis. Bug triage is very useful and much needed. - Fix a bug. For this you'll need C++ and Git skills, but this is one of the largest ways you can contribute. We welcome all bug fixes, provided the work is done well and doesn't create other problems or introduce new dependencies. We recommend talking to us before embarking on this quest. - Add unit tests. Unit tests are possibly the most useful contributions of all, because they not only improve the quality of the code, but prevent future regressions, therefore maintaining quality of subsequent releases. Plus, broken tests are a great motivator for us to fix the causal bug. - Add a feature. Well, let's be very clear about this: adding a feature is not usually well-received, and if you add a feature and send a patch, it will most likely be rejected. The reason for this is that there are many efforts under way, in various code branches. There is a very good chance that the feature you add is either already in progress, or being done in a way that is more fitting when considering other work in progress. So if you want to add a feature, please don't. Start by talking to us, and find out what is currently under way or planned. You might find that we've already rejected such a feature for some very good reasons. So please check first, so we don't duplicate effort or waste anyone's time. - Donate some server time to the testing effort, by participating in the continuous integration of all changes, with our Flod software. See this page for an example: http://tasktools.org/tinderbox Ask us about running a Flod satellite, we're always looking for exotic platforms to test on. - Spread the word. Help others become more effective at managing tasks. - Encouragement. Tell us what works for you, and what doesn't. It's all good. - Request a feature. This not only tells us that you think something is missing from the software, but gives us insights into how you use it. Following are specific areas that could use some attention. Deprecated Code This is code that is going to be phased out soon, and therefore is not worth fixing or documenting. Don't waste your time. - Shadow file support in core. It will migrate to become an external script. - Priorities in core. This will be migrated to become a UDA as soon as we have the right support in place for custom sorting. New Code Needs This is code that needs to be written, usually down at the C++ function/method level. - Need export_viz.yy script. Any language. This would have value as an example, or template script serving as a starting-point for anyone who needed this format. - Need new export_xxx.yy scripts - the more the better. Any language. - The JSON.{h,cpp} code is fast and efficient up to a point, but has a non- linear performance curve, implying a slowdown due to fragmentation. Find it, fix it. - Need a function that can optimize color codes. For example, if a string contains this: one two three four It can be shortened to: one two three four This is only possible if there is nothing between and and the colors match. - Need an external script that can locate and correct duplicate UUIDs in the data file, as found by 'task diag'. This should check to see if there is a suitable UUID generator installed. This should also be careful to properly handle recurring tasks. - Need an external implementation equivalent to, or better than the 'shadow file' feature. Simply because shadow file capability *can* be implemented outside the core code, we want to make it be that way. - Take a look at: http://taskwarrior.org/versions/show/42 This 'extension' release is a collection of all the requested features that lie outside of the core product, and will be implemented as external scripts by anyone who wishes to participate. Documentation Needed Documentation takes many forms, and we are trying to combine all documentation into one repository, to facilitate sharing and centralize review. This includeѕ: - Man pages - Reference PDF - Wiki replacement - Tutorials - Cookbook This is all in the new git://tasktools.git/docs.git repository, where all the documents are sourced as markdown. We welcome everyone with writing skills to help us improve this critical resource. Unit Tests Needed There are always more unit tests needed. More specifically, better unit tests are always needed. The convention is that there are four types of unit test: 1. High level tests that exercise large features, or combinations of commands. For example, dependencies.t runs through a long list of commands that test dependencies, but do so by using 'add', 'modify', 'done' and 'delete'. 2. Regression tests that ensure certain bugs are fixed and stay fixed. These tests are named bug.NNN.t where NNN refers to the Redmine issue number. While it is not worth creating tests for small fixes like typos, it is for changes to the logic. 3. Small feature tests. When small features are added, we would like small, low-level feature tests named feature.NNN.t, where NNN is the Redmine issue number. 4. Code tests. These are tests written in C++ that exercise C++ objects, or function calls. These are the lowest level tests. It is important that these kind of tests be extensive and thorough, because the software depends on this code the most. The tests are mainly written in Perl, and all use TAP. Here is how to get the code and run the test suite: git clone https://git.tasktools.org/scm/tm/task.git cd task.git git checkout 2.4.0 cmake . make make test Alternately, you go to the test directory and run the following: cd task.git/test make make test Either way, a TAP file 'all.log' is written that contains all test results. Once this file is created, you can see the failing tests using this script: cd task.git/test ./problems If you make a habit of running the test suite, consider downloading the vramsteg utility to show a colorful progress bar, from: https://git.tasktools.org/scm/ut/vramsteg.git Tests needed: - The basic.t unit tests are a misnomer, and should be either removed or renamed. We have long talked of 'basic functionality' that includes add, delete, done, and list commands. We need unit tests that prove that basic functionality is working, and the file containing them should be called basic.t. - None of the current unit tests remove the 'extensions' directory, and they all should. - Test propagation of modifications to recurring tasks. - Test regex support. - Need unit tests for each bug in the issue list, if suitable. - We have bugs in the unit tests that only manifest on days such as December 31st. Clearly there is some bad date math going on, most likely in the tests themselves, rather than in Taskwarrior, although with broken tests, who knows? * Note that running the unit tests requires the Perl JSON module to be installed. Note that all new unit tests should follow the test/template.t standard. Work in Progress Things that are currently in flux, which is another way of saying leave it alone while it is being worked on. - Command line parser (A3). - Expression evaluation (E9). - All columns/Col*::validate methods. - New columns/Col*::modify methods. Current Codebase Condition 'master' branch: - 2.3.0 Current release, locked. '2.3.0' branch: - Current release. Locked. '2.3.1' branch: - For emergency releases. Hopefully we won't need this. '2.4.0' branch: - Current development branch with new command line parser, expressions --- 2012-05-12 Added general statement about how to contribute. 2013-09-09 Updated branch info. 2014-01-19 Updated for 2.4.0.