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Changelog Workflows

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Charlie edited this page Oct 8, 2020 · 20 revisions

Introduction

This workflow outlines the processing steps taken by changelog maintainers to ensure that pull requests providing new functionality (feature updates) are properly documented in order that they may be adapted and published in a format optimised for the user facing changelog that is published with each new release of QGIS. Here is an overview of the process:

QGIS-Changelog-Workflow

Diagrams.net source file for above image: (QGIS-Changelog-Workflow.zip).

Changelog walk through by Charles Dixon-Paver

Click the image above to play a YouTube video containing a walk through by Charles Dixon-Paver (scrub forward to around 3 minutes 30 seconds for the actual walk through to start).

General Workflow

  1. The changelog maintainer (currently GitHub user: zacharlie) is added to the ‘Community’ GitHub group which has triage rights

    image

  2. The changelog maintainer will read each Pull Request (PR) that has a Feature label as it comes in as per the following URL:

    https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+label%3AFeature

    In the comments section, they will make a comment to the author if the feature is not clear / well described. We would be grateful if the PR gatekeepers could hold back on merging Feature PR’s that have issues, do not have a Changelog tag applied.

  3. Once the changelog maintainers are confident that the feature functionality is described well enough that a changelog entry of the expected quality standard may be produced, they will apply the Changelog label to the PR as per the following example.

    image

    After the Changelog tag has been added, the PR maintainers should feel free to merge the PR if they are happy with it.

Note that the English description doesn’t need to be perfect (it is understood that English may not be the mother tongue of many developers submitting features), however it is important that the functionality is well described. The English description will be edited for publication in step 6 below.

  1. Changelog tagged entries which have been merged will be harvested to the Changelog site regularly. This is done using the ingestion tool as shown in the screenshot below:

    image

  2. After closed Changelog PRs have been harvested, we will list the harvested entries on GitHub via the following URL:

    https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pulls?q=is%3Apr+is%3Aclosed+label%3AChangelog

    First, the additional label on GitHub called ‘ChangelogHarvested’ will be applied to indicate that the entry has been harvested into the changelog content management site.

    Next, the Changelog label will be removed. This will prevent the same PR being reharvested (by the tool outlined in step 4) in subsequent harvest runs on the changelog platform, whilst retaining the relevant label required to indicate the PR contains a changelog entry.

  3. The entry will then be edited on the changelog site in order to get it ready publication, with the goal of having the content ready prior to the publication date for the new release. Additional volunteers from the changelog maintainers team will help improve the clarity and consistency of the entries on the changelog site. The entry should follow the conventions that are described in the "Conventions for changelog entries" section below. The goal here is to massage the description etc. to fit into our changelog entry form:

    image

  4. When the release comes near, the paid bug fixing entries added under 'Notable fixes' will need to be added. This is managed by Andreas Neumann.

    image

  5. After the changelog is finalised, changelog maintainers will notify Richard, who will then pull the changelog to the QGIS web site.

More on tagging

We will add the Changelog tag when a PR tagged with the feature label has been reviewed and the description has been considered descriptive enough (of the functionality) that a suitable changelog entry may be developed from the available material. Once a PR tagged Changelog is merged, it will be considered ready for ingestion and once harvested, the Changelog tag will be replaced with the ChangelogHarvested tag to prevent duplication on the changelog site.

We will basically have a number of states which are outlined as follows:

  1. Feature tag - PR description not reviewed or not suitable for inclusion in changelog
  2. Feature tag + Changelog tag: PR Not Merged - feature description suitable for inclusion in changelog
  3. Feature tag + Changelog tag: PR Merged - feature merged and ready for ingestion into changelog
  4. Feature tag + ChangelogHarvested tag + PR merged - entry has been ingested into changelog

Conventions for changelog entries

Once published, the changelog entries will be available at https://qgis.org/en/site/forusers/visualchangelogs.html

The entries will therefore need to comply with the associated stylesheets and conventions utilised with previous releases.

The following list outlines some basic guidelines for ensuring the entry content is of the required standards:

  • The feature title should be unique. Pull requests often use "tags" to automatically manage elements in the workflow such as adding the [Feature] label to the element title. All such elements should be removed, and the title should properly convey the new functionality introduced.
  • Each entry should be categorised appropriately. By default, all newly imported entries will be included in the "General" category, however only entries that truly belong in the general category should be categorised as general by the time of publication.
  • Content should be articulate and concise. Details from the pull request relating to developer specific content or items specifically for the documentation team can be removed. Some information on the feature utilisation is suitable, however it should not be verbose.
  • Git/ GitHub specific references such as 'This PR adds' introductions should be modified to 'Functionality was introduced to' or 'We have added'.
  • References to issues and pull requests, such as Fixes #123456 should ideally be modified to full descriptive links, e.g. This addresses the limitations identified in <a href="https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/issues/123456">issue 123456</a>.
  • Entry content should not contain any header tags such as <h1>, <h2> or <h4> etc. as these will display on the changelog site as links within the TOC (table of contents).
  • Each entry should have a single primary thumbnail icon. Additional media elements should be embedded in the content body.
  • Special characters should be avoided. Where relevant, move special characters like parenthesis and extraneous description elements from the entry title and into the description body.
  • Media should be explicitly added to the entry (downloaded to local and uploaded with the changelog tool).
  • Language should generally be considered neutral, however developer comments or embellishments are permitted within reason. American English is the preferred standard for spelling and grammar.
  • In some instances, especially with complex functionality, additional details or media on the feature may be discussed within the comments of the original PR on github, which should be reviewed where relevant and included in the changelog entry.
  • References to oneself should be changed to group pronouns (i.e. 'I' becomes 'we')
  • Each developer tends to have different styles and standards for the structure and format of the entry content. Where possible, we should endeavour to keep things as consistent with the other entries as possible.

Get involved

The QGIS developers have been increasingly adding loads of new functionality with each release, and as the number of new features increases, so does the effort required to maintain the changelog. Maintaining and contributing to the QGIS changelog is a great way for community members with strong command of the English language and decent writing ability to get involved with the project without the need for significant specific knowledge or other advanced skills. It's also a way for experienced members to perform a few quick and easy contributions when they have other time constraints.

First make sure you've signed up with an account at https://changelog.qgis.org

Then, in order to get "edit" access to the changelogs, you will need to get in touch with the changelog maintenance team. Simply send an email to charles[at]kartoza.com or tim[at]kartoza.com and express your interest.

Once you've been assigned the correct permissions, you will find the link to the latest release changelog at the bottom of the home page.

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