Contributing to Inkscape
========================
Inkscape welcomes your contributions to help turn it into a fully
SVG-compliant drawing program for the Open Source community. 

While many developers work on fixing bugs and creating new features, it
is worth strong emphasis that even non-programmers can help make
Inkscape more powerful and successful. You probably already have an idea
of something you'd like to work on. If not, here are just a few ways you
can help: 

   * Pick a bug, fix it, and send in a merge request on gitlab.
   * Choose a feature you want to see developed, and make it.
   * If you speak a language in addition to English, work on your
     language's i18n file in the po/ directory.
   * Find a new bug and report it.
   * Help answer questions for new Inkscapers on IRC, forum, or the
     mailing lists.
   * Write an article advocating Inkscape.
   * Author a HOWTO describing a trick or technique you've figured out.


GIT Access
==========
Inkscape is currently developed on git, with the code hosted on gitlab.

 * https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape

We give write access out to people with proven interest in helping develop
the codebase.  Proving your interest is straightforward:  Make two
contributions and request access.

Compiling the development version
=================================
See http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/CompilingInkscape for general
remarks about compiling, including how to find some of the needed packages for
your distribution, and suggestions for developers.


Patch Decisions
===============
Our motto for changes to the codebase is "Patch first, ask questions
later".  When someone has an idea, rather than endlessly debating it, we
encourage folks to go ahead and code something up (even prototypish).
This is then incorporated into the development branch of the code for
folks to try out, poke and prod, and tinker with.  We figure, the best
way to see if an idea fits is to try it on for size.


Coding Style
============
Please refer to the Coding Style Guidelines
(https://inkscape.org/en/develop/coding-style/) if you have specific questions
on the style to use for code.  If reading style guidelines doesn't interest
you, just follow the general style of the surrounding code, so that it is at
least consistent.


Documentation
=============

Code needs to be documented. Future Inkscape developers will really
appreciate this. New files should have one or two lines describing the
purpose of the code inside the file.


Makefiles
=========
Inkscape currently uses CMake. We encourage you to build it by creating a build 
folder, and running 

`cmake <<<source folder>>> \`
`-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache \`
`-DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER_LAUNCHER=ccache \`
`-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \`
`-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=$PWD/..`

This uses ccache to speed up later builds (optional), create a Debug build 
(use "Release" otherwise) and makes a local install prefix.

(If you have ninja available, add "-G Ninja" to enable it)

Then, run `make -j$(nproc) install` (or `ninja install`) to build & install


Testing
=======

Before landing a patch, the unit tests should pass.

See: http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/CMake#Using_CMake_to_run_tests