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<title>How to contribute</title>
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<h1>How to contribute</h1>
<p>dopewars is open-source software, meaning that it is free for anybody to
use. However, this also means that the quality of the software is dependent
in part on <b>you</b> the user. You <b>don't</b> have to be a programmer to
help out - in fact, dopewars currently needs people to produce sounds and
graphics rather than to write code.</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Sounds</b> are urgently needed right now. dopewars-1.5.7 and later
support sounds, but at the moment users must supply their own sound files,
as none are included. If <b>you</b> can provide copyright-free sounds,
then short files are needed for various effects in the game. For example,
gunshots, bullet hits, ricochets and subway trains are obvious candidates
for sound effects, although pretty much any event in the game that you can
think of can conceivably have a sound (e.g. when players join or leave the
game). These sounds should be in WAV format, and should probably be no more
than a second or two in length. Later versions of dopewars may also be able
to play longer repeating sounds (i.e. music) if you're interested in
contributing this. Use the
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=195965">SourceForge
Data forum</a> to see what sounds other people are working on.
<p /></li>
<li><b>Suggestions</b> for future improvements are always welcomed at the
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=34874">SourceForge
Open Discussion forum</a>. These can be anything from "the game interface
is confusing" through "more game locations are needed" to "what about a
hospital". (I can't guarantee that such suggestions will ever make it
into dopewars, but it's a lot easier if I know they exist! Also, it's
far more likely to happen if you write the code - see the
<a href="developer.html">tips for developers</a> page.)<p /></li>
<li><b>Bug reports</b> are always useful. Register them with the
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=11128&atid=111128">SourceForge
bug tracker</a>. If I don't know the problem exists, I can't fix it...
The more information you can give here, the better. In particular, I need
to know your operating system - e.g. Linux or Windows. For Linux, gdb stack
traces of the core file are most useful.<p /></li>
<li><b>Configuration files</b> can be included in future distributions. If
you run a customised game, and think others might want to play with your
configuration, or at least use it as an example, then post it to the
<a href="http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=195965">SourceForge
Data forum</a>...<p /></li>
<li><b>Translation</b> of dopewars into your language will enable you to
play the game in your native tongue, and will also help others that speak
the same language. It's pretty easy, too - all you have to do is edit a
simple text file! See the <a href="i18n.html">i18n pages</a>.<p /></li>
</ul>
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<li><a href="index.html">Main index</a></li>
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