First steps for new developers

So you want to contribute to Limesurvey and help the development team? That's really great! Every helping hand is needed.

=First steps= If you haven't already done so, please create a user account at the LimeSurvey website. Once you have logged in there you can use the account to
 * post at the LimeSurvey forums
 * edit the LimeSurvey manual/wiki
 * create new tickets at the LimeSurvey bugtracker

You may also be interested in subscribing to the LimeSurvey mailing list and creating a personal account on gitHub

=Get in touch with the team= The best way to directly get in touch with the LimeSurvey team is by joining the LimeSurvey IRC. At the LimeSurvey website you can later check the IRC logs if needed. These are some core team members who are usually available at the LimeSurvey IRC. If you write their nickname at IRC it will highlight at their IRC client which helps to get your attention:
 * c_schmitz (Carsten): The LimeSurvey project lead, his time is always pretty limited but for any details concerning the LimeSurvey project he is the man to talk to.
 * Mazi (Marcel): LimeSurvey Head of Support, he can help with general LimeSurvey questions and walk you around if you need help with your first steps.
 * LouisGac (Louis): Limesurvey 2.5 developer, he can answer all questions about the LimeSurvey 2.5 code base
 * sammousa (Sam): LimeSurvey 3.0 expert, he know everything about the next LimeSurvey generation
 * ollehar (Olle): LimeSurvey developer
 * shnoulle (Denis): LimeSurvey developer and bug fixing expert
 * tammo (Tammo): A very experienced LimeSurvey user who can help you with all basic questions
 * jelo (Jens): Jens helps us at the forums a lot. If he is available at the LimeSurvey IRC he will surely help with answering basic questions
 * tpartner (Tony): Our JavaScript expert, you may have met him at the LimeSurvey forums.

=How you can help= If you are familar with LimeSurvey you can give a helping hand at the LimeSurvey forums or answer questions at the LimeSurvey IRC.

You are a PHP/MySQL/JavaScript coder? Great, we love working with experts! You can surely help fixing bugs listed at the LimeSurvey bugtracker. if you are unsure which issue to start with -> we can help with that. Best is to ping one of the developers listed above at the LimeSurvey IRC. They can tell you which issues are good to start with.

You may also want to develop new features for LimeSurvey. In this case please check the documentation about how to contribute new features because it is important to get in touch with use before starting to develop something. Otherwise you risk that you are doing the work for nothing if we can't add it to the LimeSurvey core code later.

=Helpful links=
 * LimeSurvey code repository at GitHub
 * Standard for Git commit messages - These are really important to us!
 * Coding guidelines
 * How to document your source code
 * How to join the LimeSurvey project team
 * Details about the Yii PHP framework we are using
 * LimeSurvey 2.x directory structure
 * Most important controllers (what they do/where they are called)
 * Debugging issues at LimeSurvey