etcher/docs/CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing Guide

Thanks for your interest in contributing to this project! This document aims to serve as a friendly guide for making your first contribution.

High-level Etcher overview

Make sure you checkout our ARCHITECTURE.md guide, which aims to explain how all the pieces fit together.

Developing

Prerequisites

Common

• NodeJS (at least v6.11)
• Python 2.7
• jq
• curl
• npm (version 6.7)

pip install -r requirements.txt

You might need to run this with sudo or administrator permissions.

Windows

• NSIS v2.51 (v3.x won't work)
• Either one of the following:
  • Visual C++ 2015 Build Tools containing standalone compilers, libraries and scripts
  • Install the windows-build-tools via npm with npm install --global windows-build-tools
  • Visual Studio Community 2015 (free) (other editions, like Professional and Enterprise, should work too) NOTE: Visual Studio 2015 doesn't install C++ by default. You have to rerun the setup, select "Modify" and then check Visual C++ -> Common Tools for Visual C++ 2015 (see http://stackoverflow.com/a/31955339)
• MinGW

You might need to npm config set msvs_version 2015 for node-gyp to correctly detect the version of Visual Studio you're using (in this example VS2015).

The following MinGW packages are required:

• msys-make
• msys-unzip
• msys-zip
• msys-bash
• msys-coreutils

macOS

• Xcode

It's not enough to have Xcode Command Line Tools installed. Xcode must be installed as well.

Linux

• libudev-dev for libusb (install with sudo apt install libudev-dev for example)

Cloning the project

git clone --recursive https://github.com/balena-io/etcher
cd etcher

Installing npm dependencies

NOTE: Please make use of the following command to install npm dependencies rather than simply running npm install given that we need to do extra configuration to make sure native dependencies are correctly compiled for Electron, otherwise the application might not run successfully.

If you're on Windows, run the command from the Developer Command Prompt for VS2015, to ensure all Visual Studio command utilities are available in the %PATH%.

make electron-develop

Running the application

GUI

# Build the GUI
make webpack
# Start Electron
npm start

Testing

To run the test suite, run the following command:

npm test

Given the nature of this application, not everything can be unit tested. For example:

• The writing operating on real raw devices.
• Platform inconsistencies.
• Style changes.
• Artwork.

We encourage our contributors to test the application on as many operating systems as they can before sending a pull request.

The test suite is run automatically by CI servers when you send a pull request.

We also rely on various make targets to perform some common tasks:

• make lint: Run the linter.
• make sass: Compile SCSS files.

We make use of EditorConfig to communicate indentation, line endings and other text editing default. We encourage you to install the relevant plugin in your text editor of choice to avoid having to fix any issues during the review process.

Updating a dependency

Given we use npm shrinkwrap, we have to take extra steps to make sure the npm-shrinkwrap.json file gets updated correctly when we update a dependency.

Use the following steps to ensure everything goes flawlessly:

• Run make electron-develop to ensure you don't have extraneous dependencies you might have brought during development, or you are running older dependencies because you come from another branch or reference.

• Install the new version of the dependency. For example: npm install --save <package>@<version>. This will update the npm-shrinkwrap.json file.

• Commit both package.json and npm-shrinkwrap.json.

Diffing Binaries

Binary files are tagged as "binary" in the .gitattributes file, but also have a diff=hex tag, which allows you to see hexdump-style diffs for binaries, if you add the following to either your global or repository-local git config:

$ git config diff.hex.textconv hexdump
$ git config diff.hex.binary true

And global, respectively:

$ git config --global diff.hex.textconv hexdump
$ git config --global diff.hex.binary true

If you don't have hexdump available on your platform, you can try hxd, which is also a bit faster.

Commit Guidelines

See COMMIT-GUIDELINES.md for a thorough guide on how to write commit messages.

Sending a pull request

When sending a pull request, consider the following guidelines:

• Write a concise commit message explaining your changes.

• If applies, write more descriptive information in the commit body.

• Mention the operating systems with the corresponding versions in which you tested your changes.

• If your change affects the visuals of the application, consider attaching a screenshot.

• Refer to the issue/s your pull request fixes, so they're closed automatically when your pull request is merged.

• Write a descriptive pull request title.

• Squash commits when possible, for example, when committing review changes.

Before your pull request can be merged, the following conditions must hold:

• The linter doesn't throw any warning.

• All the tests pass.

• The coding style aligns with the project's convention.

• Your changes are confirmed to be working in recent versions of the operating systems we support.

Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions or need any help!