Hello Github!
This month was for Github and setting up local instance of ERPNext on my machine. It all started with the requirement of updating ERPNext help documentation. Step one was to get the local environment setup, at step two was the updation using a text editor and final stage was to commit, push and a pull request. Simple this sounds! but it was not.
Colleague of mine started with setup of local instance of ERPNext but after a good half day exercise, no luck. Then it was a long story of one week with all the experts involved to get this up and running. During all this time I recalled that many user report issues regarding the local setup of ERPNext on the community forum and similar issue was raised at Pune meet up as well. So finally the setup was done and I was heading to the second step.
ERPNext Help Manual updation is an integral activity where in we have to replace the old content, add newly developed functionalities and old user interface images are updated to the latest ones. We use a text editor (Textmate or Sublime text) to do the changes which are later updated by sending a pull request on Github repo of frappe/ERPNext. Yes yes, I know this is getting complicated for those who don’t know what, how and when of Frappe/ERPNext and Github. It was confusing for me as well, but thanks to my colleagues who helped me to get the grip.
Sending a pull request wasn’t that simple though, now it was time to start adding files to the repository so you can track the changes to the files. git add <path to file> to add files to the repository to be tracked. And speaking of commits… Once you’ve used git add to add new/modified files, it’s time to commit these changes (new files or changes to existing files) into the repository. git commit, with a commit message to do so. Finally git push to push the changes on the origin. Ok so, I was ready to send my first independent pull request.
Rejected! This message that the pull request is having unresolved conflicts and all those red marks made me nervous. Yet again, with that rejected(heart broken) pull request I sought help from my colleague who resolved those conflicts for me and suggested me to create small pull request. By small pull request he meant change one document at a time or just a pull request with old images replaced with new ones. Soon after all this exercise the pull request was approved and later merged.
By the end of this I got more confident and comfortable with Github and the commands. It seemed to be difficult to get used to all those commands, that too in same order of execution but as they say “Practice makes the man perfect”. Now I am all set for using Github and more of it.
