I found an error in Endless Sky. How can I contribute by fixing it?

Original text, by bene_dictator

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Endless Sky is built by its community; without it, there wouldn't be as much of the game as you play today. The beauty of an open-source game like Endless Sky is that anybody can submit direct changes to the game's data or codebase.

These submissions for change are called pull requests (PRs) and are made on GitHub, where the source code of Endless Sky is found. Opening a pull request for the first time may be daunting, but it is easier than it seems.

Opening a Pull Request

1. Before you can open a pull request, you need to make a GitHub account. Sign up for GitHub and follow their instructions.
2. Once you have made a GitHub account, go to Endless Sky's repository. Create a fork of the endless-sky repository by clicking on the "Fork" button on the top right and then clicking "Create a new fork". You can name the fork whatever you'd like, but you should probably leave it as endless-sky. Click the green "Create Fork" button once you're done.

3. In your new fork, click on the button that says "master". This button displays a menu that shows all of the branches in your fork. Create a new branch and name it "fix".

4. In your new branch, find the file with the error(s) in it. If it is to do with a mission, ship, or outfit, it will be under the data folder, which is split into different species. Once you've found the error, click the button with the pen on it to edit it. You may need to navigate back to the error if GitHub jumps you back up to the top of the file. (Note: if you noticed other errors, you can also put them into this PR.)

5. Make your edits in the text field, then save the edits with the 'Commit changes…' button. Make sure the commit is to your new branch; don't open a pull request to your master branch.

6. Once you've committed the edit, go back to your branch's "code" tab on the top navigation bar (next to issues, pull requests, etc.). There should be a new field with a button that says "Compare & Pull Request". Click Compare & Pull Request to open the pull request creation screen.

7. Title the pull request something like "fix: error in ". Edit the description to say that it closes this issue and that you've added that missing period. Then click on "Create Pull Request".

After you've opened the pull request, other contributors will look at it and discuss merging it into the master branch of the endless-sky repository. Once it's merged by a developer, well done! You've become a contributor to Endless Sky!

If you have an idea to improve Endless Sky with a new mission or story, you can now do it yourself with a pull request. You can learn more about creating content on the repository's wiki.

Further information: what is GitHub?

GitHub is a platform that allows programmers to control changes to the code of projects, through repositories and pull requests to those repositories. It is based on Linus Torvalds' Git system, which is accessed through a command-line interface. The above process does the same thing without the command line.

Many well-known projects are developed on GitHub, so it is a good platform to get to know.

_{Created in November 2023 by bene_dictator}