| Title: How To: Write A Mentor Request Email |
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| Having identified a project and an issue you would like to work on it is a |
| good idea to introduce yourself to the project community and outline your |
| plans for tackling the issue. This means the community know you are working |
| on the issue and gives the community an early opportunity to help course |
| correct your proposal if necessary (which can save lots of time). |
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| Here's an example of what your first most might look like: |
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| SUBJECT: A proposal for Skinnable widgets (WOOKIE-131) |
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| Hi, I'm new to the Wookie project but I'd like to tackle the "Skinnablewidgets" |
| issue (WOOKIE-131, see [1]). Before I launch into implementing this I'd like to |
| run my ideas past you to make sure I'm not missing something important. |
| |
| If I understand the issue correctly we need to define the structure of a minimal |
| widget. For example: |
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| <div id="wookie-widget"> |
| <div id="wookie-toolbar">This is where the toolbar will be</div> |
| <div id="wookie-content">This is where the content will be</div> |
| <div id="wookie-footer">This is where the footer will be</div> |
| </div> |
| |
| We also need to provide a default CSS for rendering this as, for example: |
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| +-----------------------+ |
| |TOOLBAR | |
| +-----------------------+ |
| | | |
| |CONTENT | |
| | | |
| +-----------------------+ |
| |FOOTER | |
| +-----------------------+ |
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| This will need to be documented and all widgets should be changed to conform to |
| this format. |
| |
| We would need to document this on the Wookie website and also document how to |
| extend this. |
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| Once all this is in place I would like to start extending it to provide documented |
| CSS identifiers to be used in common cases, for example, we may want to define |
| "wookie-navigation" as being used for a common navigation menu. We can then provide |
| various CSS alternatives for rending this as a vertical navigation menu or drop down |
| menu, or whatever. |
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| Am I on the right track? Are there any important points I'm missing? |
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| [1] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/WOOKIE-131 |
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| There are two main advantages to sending a mail like this. Firstly, you |
| force yourself to think carefully about what is needed and whether you |
| have the skills (and thus where you will need help). Secondly, it allows |
| people in the community to provide input. For example, in the above case |
| the community would probably point out that there is a widget template |
| system that needs to be modified to ensure this format is used |
| consistently. |