This guide is intended to help you get started contributing to the mobile team at a contributor day. Below is an outline of what the mobile team does and how to quickly get started. If you need any help, talk to your contributor day organizer, or ask your question in the #mobile channel on Slack.
This is a work in progress so don’t be afraid to amend the document or leave comments, particularly if you’re at a contributor day and find that we’ve missed something.
Group responsibilities
The responsibilities of the mobile group are:
- Design, develop, and maintain the WordPress Android and iOS apps.
- Design, develop and maintain the open source libraries used in the apps, all of them are listed on our GitHub account: https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/.
- Triage open issues and prioritize their resolution.
- Assist in the evolution of core data APIs.
- Fortnightly release new versions of the apps.
Common Tasks
Here are some of the tasks the team performs and would like help on:
- Sketch and wireframe ideas for new features.
- Design features and user flows.
- Plan and add new features.
- Fix bugs.
- Test new releases.
Prior Knowledge
Prior knowledge you’ll find helpful for working with the mobile team is:
- Knowledge of the Git version control system for use with GitHub.
- Familiarity with WordPress’ mobile style guidelines.
- Command of the language for the mobile platform you want to develop for, Kotlin for the Android app, Swift for iOS, JavaScript for Gutenberg mobile.
- General understanding of the flow and style of mobile applications.
Tools
- Version control system: git.
- Local development environment: Android Studio and Xcode, node and npm.
Essential Reading
If you want to contribute to WordPress for Android or WordPress for iOS, the projects READMEs are a good start. Everything from getting the code to building your own version is described there:
- https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-Android/blob/develop/README.md
- https://github.com/wordpress-mobile/WordPress-iOS/blob/develop/README.md
It’s also a good idea to read our CONTRIBUTING.md (for WordPress Android and WordPress iOS) documentation.
Main mobile libraries we’re maintaining:
- Gutenberg Mobile – the mobile version of the WordPress block editor. It’s a cross platform (Android and iOS) library using React Native.
- Aztec, a rich text component to edit HTML content. Aztec for Android and Aztec for iOS.
- MediaPicker for iOS, an iOS controller that allows capture and picking of media assets.
We also have Design contribution guidelines.
First steps
Once you picked the project you want to contribute to, start by looking at tickets labelled “good first issue” on GitHub. Example: Good First Issue for WordPress Android, Good First Issue for WordPress iOS, Good First Issue for Gutenberg Mobile.