Hello Gibbon community! A whole crazy, bizarre, incomprehensible year has gone by since last October, and that means it's Hacktoberfest time again 🤯 🎉

Whether you’re an open source veteran or completely new, there are many ways to participate in Hacktoberfest and contribute to Gibbon. Be sure to sign up on the website first so that your first four pull requests count towards a free t-shirt or planting a tree!

Where to start?

If you are new to open source or GitHub, check out the Hacktoberfest Resources page and the tutorials that the DigitalOcean folks have put together: An Introduction to Open Source. We also have some developer docs available at https://docs.gibbonedu.org/developers/ If you have any questions getting your development environment setup, feel free to post in the comments below.

The Gibbon team has been working on refactoring our codebase the past couple versions, and there’s everything from housekeeping items to advanced refactoring items still outstanding. We’ve put together some ideas to get you started, but we also welcome other contributions. When in doubt, please ask us first in the comments below. Thanks!

🚧 Note: Please be sure to reply in the comments before you start working on something, and mention the module(s) it affects. This will help us avoid any overlaps or duplicate effort as we work collaboratively on these changes. I will work to update the items with a mention to who is working on what. Thanks!

Entry-level:

• Updating Alerts:
  Many areas of the code use raw HTML for alerts. For example:

  echo "<div class='error'>";
  echo __('The highest grouped action cannot be determined.');
  echo '</div>';
  

  These can be replaced with one of two methods: root-level errors, such as access denied, invalid variables, etc. can use the $page->addError(string $message) method. Inline errors, warnings, and messages can use the Format::addAlert(string $message, string $type) method. Be sure to use Gibbon\Services\Format; class if it's not already included.

• Updating getSettingByScope function calls:
  ✅ Completed by @SPie in Use SettingGateway::getSettingByScope #1486

• Adding null coalesce operators:
  Null coalesce was introduced in PHP7 and we've begun refactoring many areas of the codebase that were using isset() checks on variables, especially $_GET and $_POST variables. Some weren't even using isset checks at all! These variables can be updated with the more succinct format of $variableName = $_GET['variableName'] ?? '';
  🚧 In Progress by @ljfreelancer88

Mid-level:

• Replacing session variables:
  ✅ Completed by @rossdotparker

• Adding translation to modules:
  Our amazing translators have been asking to translate the additional modules. To do this, we'll first need to add the translation function to any unique strings in these modules. This can be done with the __m() function. For example, 'This is a string' becomes __m('This is a string'). Additional module repos can be found in the GibbonEdu organization page, with details on the Extend page of the Gibbon website.

• Documentation:
  Our documentation needs some love! Adding or updating the docs is a great way to contribute and create pull requests even if you're not a programmer. Our docs are hosted on GitHub and can be edited through the web UI by creating a pull request (no command line necessary). The best way to find and edit or add pages is through the docs themselves. Look for the "Edit page" and "New page" buttons.

Advanced:

• Moving SQL into Gateway Classes:
  There are many areas in the codebase that use raw SQL queries for retrieving data from the database. We are working on moving these into gateway classes, which improve maintainability and improve reusability of SQL. This process involves creating a Gateway class for a table if one doesn't exist, then moving the SQL into a method inside the gateway class, and calling that method in the code where the original SQL was.

• Deprecating Functions:
  There are way too many functions in the functions.php file. These existed before we began to OOify the codebase. Ideally, these should be replaced my methods in either existing classes or new classes. If you pick this task and plan to create classes, be sure to run the names and namespaces by us in the comments below, to ensure they don't clash with core refactoring that is already in the works.

• Refactoring Tables:
  There are lots of tables left to refactor. Check out the Refactoring Tables issue for a list of the additional modules needing refactored. There are also tonnes of tables left in the core, just search for the HTML <table tag and you'll find 'em. We have a tracking spreadsheet for these, feel free to email [email protected] and we can add you.

Give a shout with any questions.

Happy Hacktoberfest! 👩‍💻 👨‍💻