Hacktoberfest 23: Celebrate Open Source Together with AppFlowy

DigitalOcean's Hacktoberfest is an annual event in October that encourages open-source contributions. Over the last decade, thousands of coders and non-coders alike have joined Hacktoberfest. They've backed projects they cherish, honed career-boosting skills, and connected with others who share their passion for open source.

How to participate in Hacktoberfest

• Register anytime between September 26 and October 31
• Pull requests can be made in any GitHub or GitLab hosted project that’s participating in Hacktoberfest (look for the “hacktoberfest” topic). AppFlowy is participating!
• Project maintainers must accept your pull/merge requests for them to count toward your total
• The first 50,000 participants to have their first PR/MR accepted will have a tree planted in their name through Tree Nation
• Participants with four pull/merge requests accepted between October 1 and October 31 will receive a unique digital reward

Why you should make your first open-source contribution via Hacktoberfest

• Project maintainers who participated have dedicated resources for this event. This means you will receive more support from them, increasing the likelihood of merging your first PR.
• It’s a monthly event with thousands of open-source lovers. You get peer support and sufficient time, which pushes you to embrace the challenge and feel less overwhelmed about making your first contribution.
• The AppFlowy team and its community are here to help. We curated a list of beginner-friendly issues with small hints. As long as you are motivated to sharpen your Flutter skills via real-world practices, you are encouraged to give it a try!
• Hacktoberfest is committed to encouraging low-code and non-code contributions. AppFlowy values these contributions as much as coding. We have provided opportunities for people to get involved without technical knowledge and to begin building a portfolio.

Contributing to AppFlowy

Last year, through the Hacktoberfest event, more than 30 contributors supported AppFlowy by making meaningful code contributions, translating AppFlowy into more languages, and improving our technical documentation. The contributions had a lasting effect on AppFlowy after October. Some of the supporters ended up staying in the community as active contributors to AppFlowy beyond the event.

Coding contributions

This year, we are excited to make new friends and reunite with old friends through the event. We have curated a list of beginner-friendly issues for participants. Each issue has a well-defined scope and small hints. The issue creator will also be available to offer more guidance when you get stuck. In addition, you can always find help in the AppFlowy community.

Resources for AppFlowy Newcomers:

• Set up your project environment for Linux, Windows, and macOS
• How we built AppFlowy with Flutter and Rust
• How we built a highly customizable rich-text editor for Flutter
• A journey of merging their first PR by a community member
• How to use Git to submit your PR

Non-coding contributions

Non-coding contributions are equally important as coding to an open source project. There are many non-coding ways to get involved. Conducting certain tests, filing bug reports, writing documentation, and promoting the project can help project maintainers develop better software. While It might not sound as glamorous as adding features, its just as rewarding. Open source provides non-coders with opportunities to build a portfolio and pivot into roles like community managers or developer advocates. Here are a few ways to make non-code contributions:

Translate the software

Enjoy the application in your favorite language by helping us to translate AppFlowy. There might be users from different parts of the world who are more comfortable in a different language.

Please read this issue for details.

This will open up the project to a whole new user base.

Make a tutorial or write a blog post

Have you been a contributor to the project for a while? From creating video tutorials to contributing to a blog series, help new community members get started with AppFlowy! Make blog posts/videos explaining how you use AppFlowy to get things done or navigate through the codebase, or show how you built something cool with AppFlowy. Publish your stories on forums like itsfoss, youtube , dev.to, medevel.com, hashnode, etc

If you’re submitting low- or non-code content to projects, make sure to create a PR/MR to track your contribution. If you are not familiar with GitHub, don’t worry! Just ask us for help.

Get a jump start by browsing our repo for an issue to work on!

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