2020-01-07-contributing-in-4-simple-steps.md

title: Contributing in 4 Simple Steps
date: 2020-01-07
authors:
  - erxleben
layout: blogpost
title_image: default
categories:
  - tutorial
tags:
  - example
  - markdown
excerpt:
  Want to contribute? No time to read long tutorials?
  Then this contribution quickstart guide is for <em>you</em>.
additional_css:
  - 2020-01-07-contributing-in-4-simple-steps/button-link.css

What This Guide will (not) Cover

This tutorial will teach you a quick way to get a basic blog post set up and published on hifis.net. If you plan to write something bigger that might take several days to write up and refine, [Christian's Guide][ref1] is the better choice for you.

The guide will not go into the details of fancy formatting and styling, however you might want to check the [Template Blog Post][ref2] for examples of common blogging tasks. Additionally, the [Kramdown Quick Reference][ref3] may prove helpful.

Okay, enough chit-chat, let's write a blog post!

Step 1: Create an Issue

By opening an issue you let the core team know what you are planning (which is a nice thing to do). It helps to gather the important information right from the start.

{: .button-link} Open a new issue on the HZDR Gitlab now

Fill out the information as requested in the

>>>
  Quotation blocks
>>>

There is no need to set anything else, so you may now click the Submit Issue button. You will get redirected to the issue page that was just set up. Here you can lead a discussion with other contributors and the core team about your ideas or ask questions you have beforehand. It might be a good idea to bookmark it for later reference. Also note that your new issue has been assigned a unique issue number to identify it.

On this issue page you will find the Create merge request button. Click it to continue to the next step.

Step 2: Set up the Basis

Gitlab now has set up a merge request page for you and — even more important — created a new branch for your issue.

If you are not familiar with git think of a branch like your own version of the project, where you can do whatever you like without worrying about breaking anything on the live system.

To avoid chaos and confusion, specific ordering and naming conventions have been established, dictating which files go into which folders.

For that purpose you can click the Open in Web IDE button on the merge request page. This Web IDE is like a small file browser and editor in one and all you need for the rest of the tutorial.

Everything in the Right Place

Your blog post must be put into the folder /_posts/YYYY/MM/ where YYYY is the 4-digit year, MM is the 2-digit month (and later we need DD for the 2-digit day). If this path does not fully exist, you should now create it.

{:.treat-as-figure} {: .float-left} The dropdown-menu to create a new sub-folder becomes visible on hovering the parent folder.