Introduction

Introduction to Contributing to Zen Cart

One of the joys of Open Source projects is the collective sharing of knowledge, skill, and creativity … for the common good of everyone.

To that end, the documentation in this section is here to help you get started contributing to Open Source, specifically to the Zen Cart project.

But What Can I Offer?

Your experiences will be both the same as hundreds of others and yet uniquely yours at the same time. Your own unique perspective, combined with your own creativity, coupled with your skills and experience, mean you have something to offer!

See a bug? Know of an improvement, even if it’s tiny? Feel free to share about it!

I’m Scared! This is my first time!

That’s completely understandable. We all started with a sense of excitement and fear all at once. Excitement to be a contributor, and fear that my contribution might be wrong or break something or be rejected. Those are normal feelings but not to worry, all suggestions get vetted first.

Where do I start?

It’s really as easy as 1-2-3 …

  1. Start with reviewing the Issues document, as a guide to first steps about exploring the issue further, checking whether it’s already being addressed someplace, whether it’s a core bug vs a “bugs-me bug”, along with how to report the issue to the dev team and community for further discussion using Github Issues or the Zen Cart Support Forum.

If you’re simply “looking for ways to get started”, take a look at the existing Zen Cart Issues on Github for issues that are tagged with “up-for-grabs” or “first-timers-only”.

  1. If you’re going to contribute code, read through the Github Workflow document to learn more about setting up git and github, cloning the repository, creating a branch in which to make your code changes, and how to submit a Pull Request.

  2. As you start working on your code changes and pull request, review the Coding Standards guide to ensure that your code matches both the formatting and testing requirements. If you’re submitting a new feature and know how to write PHP code tests, please be sure to submit tests with your code.

New contributors may find these forum links helpful:



Still have questions? Use the Search box in the upper right, or try the full list of FAQs. If you can't find it there, head over to the Zen Cart support forum and ask there in the appropriate subforum. In your post, please include your Zen Cart and PHP versions, and a link to your site.

Is there an error or omission on this page? Please post to General Questions on the support forum. Or, if you'd like to open a pull request, just review the guidelines and get started. You can even PR right here.
Last modified June 4, 2022 by Scott C Wilson (af93c4d2).