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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, wiki 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.
- 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.
- 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. 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.
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.
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:
<red>one two </red><red>three four</red>
It can be shortened to:
<red>one two three four</red>
This is only possible if there is nothing between </red> and <red> 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
Various forms of documentation that are needed, or are in need of review or
update.
- Wiki/How-To: Date Handling
- Wiki/How-To: Aliases, particularly new enhanced aliases
- Wiki/Features: All sections
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 git://tasktools.org:task.git
cd task.git
git checkout 2.3.0
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:
git://tasktools.org/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.
* 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:
- 2.2.0 Current release, locked.
'2.2.0' branch:
- Current release. Locked.
'2.3.0' branch:
- Current development branch with sync features, and new tasksh.
'2.4.0' branch:
- Command line parser rewrite.
---
2012-05-12 Added general statement about how to contribute.
2013-09-09 Updated branch info.
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