[Koha-devel] how to start customization

[Michael Hafen]

I'll explain how I handle customization, that should give a good start.

First thing is I don't touch the clone.  In git the clone is called
master.  I make a new branch, let's call it custom, like so:

`git branch custom origin`
`git checkout custom`

That will create the new branch and load it's state to the directory.
This is what I would change.

I would strongly recommend using git, or whatever revision control
system you are comfortable with, to save your changes.  My first round
of customizing on Koha 2.2 I did not save my changes with git, and I
soon regretted it.  Whenever I wanted to get the new version of Koha I
had to diff and merge by hand all my changes.  Git can handle most of
that work for you.

On the topic of getting changes from the clone.  First thing is to get
the changes.

`git fetch`
`git rebase origin master`

Those commands will pull down changes and apply those changes to the
clone.  That should go flawlessly.  The next part is a little harder.

`git rebase origin custom`

That will roll back your work, apply the changes from clone, and roll
forward your work again on top of the new code.  Usually this will go
ok.  Some time I have a change that happens at where a new change
happens.  Sometimes (usually) git does not know how to handle this.  It
will leave both changes in place an kindly tell you in the terminal that
a conflict needs to be resolved.  It tells you the files, and marks the
conflict(s) in the file with "<<<<<<<" where the new clone code is and
">>>>>>>" where your new code stops, with "======" or some such between
them.  Since, hopefully, you know your own code, this shouldn't be to
hard to fix.  Then there are a couple commands to tell git to continue.

`git update-index [changed file]`
`git rebase --continue`

The first command is important, but git will not tell you to do it.

That is how I handle my customization.  Maybe this description will help
you.

Good luck.

On Tue, 2008-12-23 at 15:08 +0500, Zahoor wrote:
> Hello every body,
> 
> I have got the clone of koha using the Git after configuring the koha
> on Debian 4.0. 
> 
> Kindly let me know how can I set development environment to customize
> koha according to the requirement of our own library. Clone of koha on
> my local system has all the code of koha modules. Should I access
> those modules and make changes in required and after saving that
> locally should commit it using Git?
> 
>  
> 
> Please help me as I am new entrant in Perl and koha.
> 
> Have a nice time and thanks in advance.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Koha-devel mailing list
> Koha-devel at lists.koha.org
> http://lists.koha.org/mailman/listinfo/koha-devel
-- 
Michael Hafen
Systems Analyst and Programmer
Washington County School District
Utah, USA

for Koha checkout
http://koha-dev.washk12.org
or
git://koha-dev.washk12.org/koha