Bug 408967 - trying to discover dolphin development leads to unrewarding maze
Summary: trying to discover dolphin development leads to unrewarding maze
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: dolphin
Classification: Applications
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: 18.04.3
Platform: unspecified All
: NOR minor
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dolphin Bug Assignee
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2019-06-20 23:10 UTC by skierpage
Modified: 2019-06-23 10:57 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:


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Description skierpage 2019-06-20 23:10:55 UTC
SUMMARY
I wanted more information about Dolphin for developers, so I Googled "dolphin KDE source code". The first search result is 
  KDE/dolphin: KDE File Manager - GitHub
  https://github.com/KDE/dolphin
  Contribute to KDE/dolphin development by creating an account on GitHub. ... 
  together to host and review code, manage projects, and build software together.

For most projects GitHub is the best link for developer info, but a) GitHub is just a mirror for Dolphin, it's not where bugs or project management or pull requests happens (despite what the snippet in search results promises). b) https://github.com/KDE/dolphin has a one-line README

    See http://dolphin.kde.org for information about Dolphin.

which redirects to https://userbase.kde.org/Dolphin , but that also has no info for developers.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
(as above)

OBSERVED RESULT
Developers wondering about changes ("pull requests" on GitHub), issues/bugs, project status, contributing, etc. will either realize the info is not on GitHub and give up, or follow the link in the README... and find no information for developers and give up.  Great software, poor signposts.

EXPECTED RESULT

Either 
A) The barebones GitHub README should be expanded to point developers to relevant resources (https://www.kde.org/applications/system/dolphin/development , Phabricator project, bugs.kde.org ?).
B) The page the GitHub README links to, https://userbase.kde.org/Dolphin , needs to have something for developers.
C) http://dolphin.kde.org should redirect to some other page (again https://www.kde.org/applications/system/dolphin/development , or https://community.kde.org/Dolphin , or ??) with the relevant info. It's in the sidebar of the user-centric https://kde.org/applications/system/org.kde.dolphin as "Dolphin Homepage", so wherever it redirects needs to serve users as well as developers.

If Dolphin developer info ends up on some page other than GitHub README, optimize it in search results so it shows up before the unhelpful GitHub result.


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
n/a

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I had similar problems looking for other KDE project development info.

The distinction between the web sites community, techbase, userbase, kde.org/applications, Phabricator... is too subtle for anyone not intimately familiar with KDE.

I first brought up this problem on the Userbase talk page for Dolphin, https://userbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Talk:Dolphin&offset=20180930074757#GitHub_links_here.2Fneeds_developer_info_2802
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2019-06-21 07:41:05 UTC
We can't control Google search results, but everything else you describe is indeed a serious problem.
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2019-06-23 10:31:29 UTC
Here's a patch that should make things better: https://phabricator.kde.org/D22025
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2019-06-23 10:57:58 UTC
Git commit 0a06b1764cd309e4ec5805eb78ac77a9ca0de4fd by Nate Graham.
Committed on 23/06/2019 at 10:57.
Pushed by ngraham into branch 'master'.

Improve README documentation

Summary:
Previously, README contained nothing but a link to userbase. A separate HACKING.md
file had non-technical developer documentation, but nothing technical to guide
people in the right direction.

This patch consolidates all information in the README file and adds technical
information about how to develop Dolphin.

Test Plan: Just read it :)

Reviewers: #documentation, #dolphin, yurchor

Reviewed By: #documentation, yurchor

Subscribers: yurchor, kfm-devel

Tags: #dolphin

Differential Revision: https://phabricator.kde.org/D22025

D  +0    -33   HACKING.md
M  +47   -1    README

https://commits.kde.org/dolphin/0a06b1764cd309e4ec5805eb78ac77a9ca0de4fd