How to fix bugs on the Fedora Project website

This page describes how to fix a bug or submit other changes to the Fedora Project website. Anyone can perform these steps, and you do not need special permission to send a patch to the websites list for consideration.

Making changes

Never use root account for this
Do not use your system's root account for this work. All of these steps can be run by a normal user. You only need to provide the root password to install packages in the first step.

This procedure shows you how to copy the fedora-web repository locally and use your local store to make changes.

1. Ensure you have the git package and the Apache web server installed:

   su -c 'yum shell'
   > install git gettext python-genshi python-setuptools babel python-feedparser
   > groupinstall 'Web Server'
   > run

2. Set up at least your name and email address in your global git configuration, as shown on this section of the git quick reference.
3. Make sure you are in a directory to which you have write access, such as your home directory or a subdirectory, and clone the websites repository. This takes several minutes on a fast connection.

   cd $HOME
   git clone git://git.fedorahosted.org/git/fedora-web.git

4. Change directory to the website you want to change. The repository carries several sites, including fedoraproject.org, spins.fedoraproject.org, and others.

   cd fedora-web/fedoraproject.org

5. You can make a fresh, new branch for your changes, or you can do your work against an existing branch of the fedora-web project. To make a fresh branch for your own use only ("mychanges" is a name you can choose):

   git checkout -b mychanges

   If you want to work on something that already exists as a branch on websites, like a redesign branch, you can set up your branch to track the changes on that branch. That allows you to build on the existing work without worrying about whether you're overwriting the existing team's work. For example, if you want to help with the "fpo-redesign" branch:

   git checkout -b mychanges --track origin/fpo-redesign

6. Make your changes. It's best to make a set of related changes together, but don't make many unrelated changes at once. For instance, it's OK to make several spelling fixes together, but don't combine those with an additional navigation menu option.
7. Test your changes.

   make

   After the make completes successfully and the website will now be available in your /out/ directory. Now run a local sandbox test of the website:

   make test

8. Point your web browser at http://localhost:5000 to view the sandbox site. When you are done viewing, stop the temporary web server:

   make stoptest

9. If everything looks OK, stage the files you changed:

   git add data/content/file1.html data/content/file2.html

10. Commit the staged changes:

    git commit -m 'Fix spelling errors'

Sending in your changes

1. When you're done, create patch files for your changes:

   git format-patch origin/master

2. Now you can send the patches you've created, which will have names such as 0001-my-change.patch, to the websites list.

Sending a test patch
If you want to send a test patch somewhere, please don't use the websites list. Instead, send to your own @fedoraproject.org email. Thank you!

Showing off your changes

You can copy the contents of the /out/ folder to a web share, if you have one, for viewing. Your fedorapeople.org space provides this under the ~/public_html/ folder.

ADVANCED USERS: You can also copy your git tree to your fedorapeople.org storage site, which allows us to easily pull them in. If you don't have a fedorapeople.org account, you'll need to post your changes somewhere and let us know.

Instructions for using your fedorapeople.org space are found on the fedorapeople.org wiki page.

Making text translatable

Text intended for a human reader should be made into translatable strings. Text to be translated should be surrounded by one of the following:

• If the string contains other HTML markup such as special characters (such as < > found in HTML markup), surround the string like this:

  ${Markup(_('str'))}

• If there is no such special markup or characters, surround the string like this:

  ${_('str')}

In some cases, you may want a piece of text to be changeable without disturbing the rest of the translation. This is often the case with quantities that might change from release to release such as a file size. Here is an example of using named substitution to accomplish this goal:

${_('%(size)s, DVD ISO disc image for %(arch)s-bit PC') % {'size':'3.1 GB', 'arch':'32'}}

Many editors will automatically highlight this syntax. Others such as vim can be customized to do so. To add a vim specific color syntax, run the following:

vi ~/.vim/after/syntax/html.vim

Then, insert the code below into this new file.

" highlight Comment ctermfg=Green guifg=Green
  syn region htmlComment    start=+${_('+           end=+')}+
  syn region htmlComment    start=+${_("+           end=+")}+
  syn region htmlComment    start=+${Markup(_('+    end=+'))}+
  syn region htmlComment    start=+${Markup(_("+    end=+"))}+
" error highlighted
  sy match htmlComment  /${_([0-9A-Za-z%].*')}/ contains=htmlCommentError
  sy match htmlComment  /${Markup((.*[)]{,1}}/  contains=htmlCommentError

This code is an example, and somewhat incomplete -- feel free to improve it and edit this page. For each HTML file, vim will override the default color with the comment color of the right strings, and highlight strings that have errors.

Additional information

The git quick reference might be useful for you, beyond just setting up your global configuration.

The Git Community Book is an excellent reference if you find git useful and want to learn more about it.

You don't have to be a member of the Websites team to help fix things on the site, but if you find yourself doing it more than once, you might want to join us!