this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
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how to contribute to lemmy/kbin UI? (beehaw.org)
submitted 1 year ago by crank@beehaw.org to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I would like to try making a few minor changes to the CSS in either kbin or lemmy both of which I've been trying out. I favor a more dense interface and think styles could help visually separate different kinds of content. Maybe to reorganize some stuff if I got more ambitious.

I have some experience with web stuff, css. I can get around in git. But I am not a sysadmin or a programmer. And I have never worked on such a large comprehensive project.

Here are the repos I found:

codeberg Kbin/kbin-core

  • seems to have no contib guidelines
  • issues: 50 open, 4 closed

github LemmyNet/lemmy

  • contrib - same link for both repos but doesn't really give much useful info

  • Issues: 184 open, 1,594 closed

github LemmyNet/lemmy-ui

  • issues: 197 open, 507 closed

Do I need to run the whole server with back end to fiddle with the CSS? Or can I use the developer tools in my browser to produce an alternative stylesheet?

Maybe it is just way above my skill set to make full PRs in something so complex. Should I post mock ups of how I'd like it to look as an issue?

Or just wait for someone who knows better how to get it done to come along?

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[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want to start contributing to a complex open source project, there are different approaches depending on how well prepared the project is for new contributors.

Some projects label some issues as "good first issue." If you find those, go ahead and comment into the issue that you are interested in resolving it. It helps to discuss first what you want to change, and especially ask if the issue is still relevant and the text in the issue still up to date. You may then even get some help and some pointers what to watch out for when implementing, which help you understand the code better.

If there are no such issues but you have some ideas anyways, you could create an issue and discuss the idea.

If you don't have any own ideas, you can make an issue asking what issues are good for first timers.

But in the end, always communicate, and sometimes also don't fear to create a prototype if the community around a project does not seem to know well what they want for certain issues.

[–] crank@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

hmmm all good thoughts. I would like to see about trying to do some stuff locally without discussion to see if it is viable for me at my level of skill and time availability. If I can get a dev environment running and figure out the basic tasks involved then I would probably start discussions about what I might do.

There doesn't seem to be much prior issues, especially kbin, on this topic, unless it is in a separate repo that I am not seeing.

I am guessing that neither project anticipated it was about to get slammed and may not be ready to deal with that on the server admin side and also be managing bug requests and onboarding new devs with all kinds of ideas.

[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That is a great approach! I think if you manage to set it up yourself, the project may benefit from a pull request with a dev setup guide 😉

[–] crank@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

Even in the best case scenario I probably don't have the breadth to write something PR-ready but an issue with notes would probably be doable. (Unless the existing docs are already docs are already perfect, which they could be.)

[–] Echolot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I just created a pull request yesterday for lemmy-ui and to comfortably work on the frontend you would also have to setup the database and the backend („lemmy“) on your development machine.

Mind you they provide docker containers for the backend so it’s not so hard to get it all running so you can start playing with the UI.

[–] mercan@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

I tried to get docker working on M1 MacBook, but without luck. So for this kind of hardware I recommend just setting up backend locally, it’s also pretty straightforward.

Also if anyone got docker to work on M1 I’d be very much interested in the solution.

[–] crank@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Thanks! Just to check is the correct docker instructions here?

I also found this page Theming Guide, so I guess the way to do it would be to copy an existing theme and work on that?

[–] Echolot@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Yes that docker-compose will start all the things needed.

Yeah I would create a copy of an existing or the default theme, of course you can also use the Bootstrap Theme builder linked there but I have never used it myself before so I don’t know how well that’s gonna work.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Meanwhile the UI in this post has a relevant mind on its own due to the load issues.
It just collapsed the main content area and expanded the sidebar after a long load time, which couldn't fetch any of the images.

Edit: Also, what is the best place to make suggestions instead of reporting actual issues?

[–] crank@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Well the specific problem you have here, i would say that is an issue. They might not focus on it if it is non reproduceable or fixed by refreshing. But that is for the devs to triage.

Some floss projects have a dicussion forum to make general suggestions or as questions. I imagibe there is such a thing here on lemmy if not on github.

But ui suggestions can be issues. For example some reddit ppl (like me) have been confused because the add comment box is at the bottom of the thread instead of the top. I think that would be a fair issue to open. Or if you think the top menu bar should be arranged differently. Or if the colors are unreadable, etc.

Projects that only want certain kinds of issues reported, they should create a document explaining this.

An awful lot of discussion about what to replace reddit with has mentioned "the UI" as a major barrier to this so I hope the devs would be receptive to feedback. But they dont have to and shouldnt take every singke suggestion because it would create a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation.

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