Help us make FreeGuide

Want to do something specific?

To help out by fixing something that is bugging you:

• Build the latest source
• Unless you are doing something trivial, talk to the developers about what you are planning to do. They may well have useful suggestions. The best place to do this is the developers' mailing list - find it on the ContactUs page.
• Modify the Java source code to add the feature you want, fix the bug you have found, or whatever, and then
• Send a patch to the developers' mailing list. The best way to make the patch is with the "git diff" command, but if you don't know what I'm talking about, just attach the files you modified to your email. Make sure you give a full explanation of what the patch is for and how it works.

Want to help generally?

If you just want to help out, try this:

• Find out about who does what, and what help is needed on the Roles page.
• Build the latest source or Run the nightly build
• Test the latest version, and report any bugs, bad design or any other problems to the developers' mailing list: freeguide-tv-devel@lists.sourceforge.net
• Check out the current bugs list - most of the tasks there are programming, but if you're not a programmer look for tasks like "Check X works with Y" or "Write documentation for Z" or something like that.
• Choose a task, or if you can't find anything appropriate, ask on the mailing list what needs doing. Try to find something you care about or are interested in - it's more fun!

More info

The FreeGuide development team are open to contributions from anyone and we expect to accept most patches we receive, except ones that differ radically from our aim of creating a nice, simple TV guide.

FreeGuide itself is written entirely in Java (1.4 or higher required), but it uses the XMLTV tools (XMLTV is a separate project) which are written in Perl.

At the moment you need Sun's Java Development Kit. We want to change this so FreeGuide can work on an all Free Software platform. If you are interested in helping out, please get in touch - we will be keen to help.

The releases are built using Apache's Ant build tool. You can use the AntFarm plugin in JEdit, or Eclipse, or the command line, but you will need ant.

Read Code Rules for what you need to know as a developer.

Help and questions

ContactUs on the developers' mailing list if you have questions and we'll do our best to answer them, and put useful answers up on this wiki.