Documentation - Contributing

There are many ways to support Koha! One of the ways library staff and library support people can take part in the Koha community is by contributing to user documentation. Who else can best explain how to make the most of Koha than the people working in or with libraries?!

Whatever your background or experience, we are keen to have your help!

We welcome your thoughts, your presence and your contribution with planning, writing, editing the Koha manual, reviewing; and other tasks.

What contributing looks like

Things you could take part in include:

• Editing the Koha manual - explaining how to use new Koha features, revising sections to make them more relevant, updating screenshots, adding examples to better help library teams make the most of Koha.
  • This is the meaty bit of the Documentation work! Ideally, you would be doing all this via GitLab, writing in reStructuredText format. Useful pages: Editing the Koha manual and Koha reStructuredText - Tips and tricks. Help and guidance from experienced documenters is available!

• Giving your thoughts on Documentation issues - at Documentation meetings, we regularly need to solve issues, clarify processes and decide on solutions.
• Helping out with current Documentation projects - once in a while, we tackle something a bit different... It could be an overhaul of a specific section of the manual, testing a way to automate screenshots...
• Curating the wiki – reviewing and updating content about Koha documentation on the Koha wiki.

Where to start: find like-minded people

Attend a Koha Documentation meeting

• These usually take place about once a month. They bring together people involved and interested in Koha user documentation.
• To find out the details of future meetings:
  • Check the Koha community calendar.
  • Check the Documentation IRC meetings category on the Koha wiki.

Join the Koha mailing list

• Subscribe to the main Koha list (also known as the "general list").
• Koha documentation meetings are often announced there.
• Information about major changes and about Documentation team projects are also posted to the list.

Get in touch with the Documentation team

• Check who is in the Documentation team for the current Koha development cycle.
• Chat with us in the Koha Community Mattermost: join the Documentation channel.
• Ask on the Koha mailing list.

What you may need

1. A free account on Bugzilla - we use Bugzilla to manage documentation tasks.
2. A free account on GitLab - this is where the Koha Manual is maintained. Editing the manual will likely mean using the GitLab web interface - see Editing the Koha Manual.
3. A free account on Mattermost - to chat with the Koha Community in general and the Documentation Team in particular.
4. A Koha Wiki account - to add agenda items for future meetings, to add your name to the next Koha Documentation team... If you don't already have an account, request one.
5. Some time to contribute!