There are many ways you can contribute to the progress of ClassicPress. You don’t need to be an experienced developer or expert coder (though we would certainly love to have more help in that area). We have other projects that need your input; for example, we are currently working on building up translations. Even spreading the word by telling your friends and colleagues about ClassicPress, or posting something about ClassicPress on social media is useful.
If you do decide you would like to get involved, here are some ways to find out more.
First steps…
The best thing to do as a first step is to sign up to the ClassicPress forum. This is one of the main places where our users discuss ideas, give each other support and propose potential changes.
You could also sign up to the Zulip chat which is a portal that gets used for more immediate, real-time chat. Note though, discussions will disappear after a certain time so for more permanent, long-term topics it is better to post in the forums.
Translating ClassicPress is one of the current projects we are working on. This is done on Crowdin and we are looking for more contributors! For info about translating ClassicPress visit the ClassicPress docs.
For more experienced developers…
Head over to the main GitHub repo if you want to get involved in the core code. But before you start, please read through the guidelines for contributing.
There are also various side projects that are being developed separately. One of the most important of these undertakings has been the development of Classic Commerce (a fork of WooCommerce 3.5.3). Classic Commerce is now available as a stable release and is an officially supported ClassicPress plugin. For more details see the official website at classsiccommerce.cc. Another official plugin is Classic SEO, a fork of Rank Math.
Or do you want to create a theme or plugin for ClassicPress? Great! Head over to the ClassicPress docs to find the info that will get you started. Approved themes and plugins are listed in the ClassicPress Directory, so they become available for all ClassicPress users.
We very much welcome input into any of these areas. Or if you have a new idea, raise it on the forum or Zulip chat and we may be able to create a research plugin space for you, where the community can help share the workload.
But …
Don’t think you have to be a GitHub command line guru before you can start contributing. A simpler option is to use GitHub Desktop and we have written a series of basic tutorials to help you get started and guide you through the process. This is a great way to learn how the process of submitting a Pull Request works, and will give you a better understanding of the inner workings of an open source project.
Once you feel comfortable with submitting PRs you can start testing and reviewing other PRs that have been submitted, using GitHub Desktop and a local version of ClassicPress.
You choose
As you can see, there are plenty of choices when it comes to contributing to ClassicPress and there is a job for almost anyone. So please drop in, introduce yourself and let us know your area of interest and expertise.