From below my feeling you want to branch and create your own code base, driving it in potentially different product :) may create licensing issue. if it is not the intent, then next best thing would be for you to suggest changes to the core and work with PWG team to improve Piwigo.

Absolutely not the case, and I do hope to contribute once they complete the move over to a git-based system (patches are a special kind of hell). I suspect my goals will be achieved by creating a plugin, but that's naturally hard to do without understanding the code first. So far decent documentation has been pretty hard to find. Not complaining, I understand its an OS project, but the lack of clear docs is why I'm asking for any pointers that might save me tons of time

1) Is there any documentation on the folder structure? E.g. what goes into "include", what goes into "admin/include", etc?

yes and no. you need to read through dev docs to get the ideas - http://piwigo.org/doc/doku.php?id=start

Perhaps there is a great page I've missed, but I can't find anything on the file organization of the core codebase. I think I understand many of the concepts at this point, but knowing the intention behind the file organization would still be valuable

3) Is there a standard set of files that are always included? Where do I find this list of files, and what order are they included in

Sorry, I didn't mean the download. Let me clarify - out of all the *.inc.php files, is there some set of 5-10 that are exceptionally important? Given that the piwigo download contains ~80 files named *.inc.php, I'm looking for the ones that are most important if the goal is to understand how piwigo works

You claim that you read code base, then you would know that code has file level comments.

There are ~1200 php files alone in the downloaded code. Of course I haven't read them all, but from the set I've read I have only found one file (include/config_default.inc.php) that contains a file-level comment. Can you point me to some other files that do? Note that I'm not asking if the files contain a file-level license statement, I mean a file-level comment explaining the intent and/or purpose of the file

Again, I have my doubts about your real intent, but please accept my apologies if I misread it

You have, and I do. My apologies if I came off incorrectly, my goal here is to understand how piwigo works so I can contribute either via plugin/extension or core contributions

Thanks,
Hamilton

Last edited by hamiltont (2015-02-17 02:05:32)

Hi hamiltont,

hamiltont wrote:

[...] I do hope to contribute once they complete the move over to a git-based system (patches are a special kind of hell). I suspect my goals will be achieved by creating a plugin, but that's naturally hard to do without understanding the code first. So far decent documentation has been pretty hard to find. Not complaining, I understand its an OS project, but the lack of clear docs is why I'm asking for any pointers that might save me tons of time

Nice to read your willingness to contribute! Starting by a plugin is a good idea, but even when you code a plugin, it's easier when you understand the general organization of Piwigo code. I'm going to write something on the wiki and I will come back here to give the link.

I also read with attention that you're waiting (kind of) for a move to Git. Many plugins have already been moved to Github and I hope we will move Piwigo core soon. I'm sure other contributors are also waiting for that. [Forum, topic 24695] Switching to Git / GitHub?

3) Is there a standard set of files that are always included? Where do I find this list of files, and what order are they included in

The most important is certainly include/common.inc.php (which includes other files).

If you want to start trying to write a plugin, give a look at http://piwigo.org/doc/doku.php?id=dev:e … ns:plugins (especially plugin Skeleton, which is very useful for beginners)