Monday, October 29, 2018

Hacktober V

This is my fifth blog post in my Hacktober Series. Throughout these 5 blog posts I hope to explain my introductory work into contributing to Open Source Software.

What I Worked On

I continued to work on the focus iOS browser for my fifth contribution for Hacktoberfest. This time, I decided to tackle implementing a new feature rather than fixing a bug. Due to the iOS and Android versions being made seperately, their codebase differs. The issue I decided to work on would try to lessen the differences between the two. I chose to work on adding a quick add to autocomplete tab. This would allow a user to add a website to their autocomplete list without having to go through the settings.

The Feature

The great thing about working with open source software is that a lot of the code has already been written for you. I researched how the layout is done for the already existing button in the dropdown under the URL bar. I added another copy, tweaked some parts, and created the functions called by pressing the button. To create the function, I referenced another part of the project. There is already a method for saving new URLs to the custom autocomplete list so I just had to copy and modify the already existing code to work in this scenario. Contributing to a project this size allows me to make valuable contributions by referencing existing code, all while learning.



Closing Thoughts

Hacktoberfest was a really fun experience for me. I got to contribute to projects that interest me and I'm sure I'll continue to contribute to these projects in my free time. This was a great introduction to contributing to the world of FOSS - something that I see myself doing more of in the future.

My Pull Requests

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