Contributing Guidelines

General Feedback

Create a new issue on our Issues page. You can write your feedback either in English (recommended) or in Japanese.

Bug reports must include your environment. You can generate a bug report template automatically in CotEditor selecting "Help" > "Create Bug Report…" in the menu.

Pull-Request

Make a topic branch, instead of committing to the master or develop branch.

General Code Improvements

Bug fixes and improvements are welcome. If you wanna add a new feature or the change is huge, it's better at first to ask the team whether your idea will be accepted.

By adding code, please follow our coding style guide below.

Localization

Fixing/updating existing localizations is always welcome. The project team may add FIXME: tag as a comment in the localized strings files if there are updated strings to be localized.

If your localization makes the Autolayout destroy, try first making the sentence shorter. However, if it's impossible, then just tell us about it with a screenshot when you make a pull-request. We'll update the xib file to layout your localized terms correctly.

Good references for localization

By localization, use macOS standard terms. It might be helpful to study native Apple applications like TextEdit.app or the System Preferences to know how Apple localizes terms in their apps.

Especially, follow the terms of the following applications.

Menu item titles in TextEdit.app
Find panel in Pages.app
Some setting messages in ScriptEditor.app

Refer also to the Apple's guidelines about terminology. They are about English, but also useful for localization.

Terminology and Wording -macOS Human Interface Guidelines

Submitting a new localization

Copy one of a whole .lproj directory and use it as a template. We recommend using CotEditor/ja.lproj/ or de.lproj/ directory because they are always up-to-date and well organized. Note that you don't need to localize the Unicode block names in the Unicode.strings file.

Continuous maintenance of the localization is recommended when providing a new localization. Please tell us if you can work with us. We'll call you every time before releasing a new version when we have new strings to be localized so that you can keep all your localized strings up to date. Currently, we have maintainers for:

Simplified Chinese
Italian

Syntax Styles

Adding a new bundled syntax style

Put just your new syntax style into /CotEditor/syntaxes/ directory. You don't need to modify SyntaxMap.json file. It's generated automatically on the build.

The license for the bundled syntax styles should be "Same as CotEditor".

If the syntax language is relatively minor, we recommend you to distribute it as an additional syntax style by your own way, and just add a link to our wiki page.

Themes

We aren't accepting pull-requests adding bundled theme at the moment. You can distribute yours as an additional theme by your own way, and add a link to our wiki page.

Graphics Resources

We aren't accepting pull-requests for image resources. 1024jp enjoys creating and brushing up the graphics ;). Please just point out on the Issues page if a graphic resource has some kind of mistake to be fixed.

Coding Style Guide

Please follow the style of the existing codes in CotEditor.

Respect the existing coding style.
Leave reasonable comments.
Never omit self.
Add final to classes by default.
Insert a blank line after class/function statement line.
```
/// say moof.
func moof() {

	print("moof")
}
```

Don't declare @IBOutlet properties with !.

// OK
@IBOutlet private weak var button: NSButton?

// NG
@IBOutlet private weak var button: NSButton!

Write guard statement in one-line if just return a simple value.

// prefer
guard let foo = foo else { return nil }

// instead of
guard let foo = foo else {
    return nil
}

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