• Make sure you have git installed, and have an account on github.com. Sign into github. see http://linux.yyz.us/git-howto.html for a short list of options with git and github.com help for more.
• Fork the repository (https://github.com/ofri/Open-Knesset, top right of page). This creates a copy of the repository under your user.
• Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/your-username/Open-Knesset.git . This creates a copy of the project on your local machine. If you haven't done so already:
• git config --local user.name "Your Name"
• git config --local user.email "your@email.com"

• Python 2.x (including dev files)
• python-setuptools

In Ubuntu this can be done with:

sudo apt-get install python python-dev python-setuptools

• python bootstrap.py
• bin/buildout (if you have a problem, see "Trouble?" below)
• bin/test
• bin/django syncdb --migrate # do not create a superuser account
• bin/django loaddata dev
• bin/django createsuperuser # to create your superuser account
• bin/django runserver
• vi src/knesset/local_settings.py # create your local setting file to store a bunch of things that you do NOT want to push to everyone # NOTE: NEVER push settings.py with local changes!
• sample input for local_settings.py: DATABASE_NAME = '<your-local-path>dev.db' # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.

• Some of the mirrors are flaky so you might need to run the buildout several times until all downloads succeed.
• currently using MySQL as the database engine is not supported
• on bin/buildout, problems with getting distribution for 'PIL' can be fixed by installing the python-dev package

Prerequisites:

• Download and install Python 2.7 from http://www.python.org/download/windows/
• Download and install git by following http://help.github.com/win-git-installation/
• Generate an ssh key to your git account by following http://help.github.com/msysgit-key-setup/

Running the installation instructions:

• open command line change dir to the Open-Knesset folder
• run the installation instructions above (Without the $ ofcourse and with backslashes)

Get your branch updated with the changes done by others. Please do this every time before you start developing:

• cd Open-Knesset
• git pull git://github.com/ofri/Open-Knesset.git master
• bin/buildout # only needed if the file buildout.cfg was changed; but can't hurt you if you run it every time.
• bin/django syncdb --migrate # do not create a superuser account
• bin/test # if there are any failures, contact the other developers to see if that's something you should worry about.
• bin/django runserver # now you can play with the site using your browser

if you get the add_persons_aliases alert try bin/django migrate --fake persons 0001

• Write tests for everything that you write.
• Keep performance in mind - test the number of db queries your code performs using bin/django runserver and access a page that runs the code you changed. See the output of the dev-server before and after your change.

We use south to manage database migration. The work process looks something like:

• add the field you want to model sample_model in app sample_app
• bin/django schemamigration sample_app --auto # this generates a new migration under src/knesset/sample_app/migrations. You should review it to make sure it does what you expect.
• bin/django syncdb --migrate # run the migration.
• don't forget to git add/commit the migration file.

Currently, there is no need to update translation (po) files. Its a real headache to merge when there are conflicts, so simply add a note to the commit message "need translations" if you added any _('...') or {% trans '...' %} to the code.

• bin/test # make sure you didn't break anything
• git status # to see what changes you made
• git diff filename # to see what changed in a specific file
• git add filename # for each file you changed/added.
• git commit -m "commit message" # Please write a sensible commit message, and include "fix#: [number]" of the issue number you're working on (if any).
• git push # push changes to git repo
• go to github.com and send a "pull request" so your code will be reviewed and pulled into the main branch.