Contributing

Introduction

Join LVGL's community and leave your footprint in the library!

There are a lot of ways to contribute to LVGL even if you are new to the library or even new to programming.

It might be scary to make the first step but you have nothing to be afraid of. A friendly and helpful community is waiting for you. Get to know like-minded people and make something great together.

So let's find which contribution option fits you the best and help you join the development of LVGL!

Before getting started here are some guidelines to make contribution smoother:

Be kind and friendly.
Be sure to read the relevant part of the documentation before posting a question.
Ask questions in the Forum and use GitHub for development-related discussions.
Always fill out the post or issue templates in the Forum or GitHub (or at least provide equivalent information). It makes understanding your contribution or issue easier and you will get a useful response faster.
If possible send an absolute minimal but buildable code example in order to reproduce the issue. Be sure it contains all the required variable declarations, constants, and assets (images, fonts).
Use Markdown to format your posts. You can learn it in 10 minutes.
Speak about one thing in one issue or topic. It makes your post easier to find later for someone with the same question.
Give feedback and close the issue or mark the topic as solved if your question is answered.
For non-trivial fixes and features, it's better to open an issue first to discuss the details instead of sending a pull request directly.
Please read and follow the Coding style guide.

Pull request

Merging new code into the lvgl, documentation, blog, examples, and other repositories happen via Pull requests (PR for short). A PR is a notification like "Hey, I made some updates to your project. Here are the changes, you can add them if you want." To do this you need a copy (called fork) of the original project under your account, make some changes there, and notify the original repository about your updates. You can see what it looks like on GitHub for LVGL here: https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl/pulls.

To add your changes you can edit files online on GitHub and send a new Pull request from there (recommended for small changes) or add the updates in your favorite editor/IDE and use git to publish the changes (recommended for more complex updates).

From GitHub

Navigate to the file you want to edit.
Click the Edit button in the top right-hand corner.
Add your changes to the file.
Add a commit message on the bottom of the page.
Click the Propose changes button.

From command line

The instructions describe the main lvgl repository but it works the same way for the other repositories.

Fork the lvgl repository. To do this click the "Fork" button in the top right corner. It will "copy" the lvgl repository to your GitHub account (https://github.com/<YOUR_NAME>?tab=repositories)
Clone your forked repository.
Add your changes. You can create a feature branch from master for the updates: git checkout -b the-new-feature
Commit and push your changes to the forked lvgl repository.
Create a PR on GitHub from the page of your lvgl repository (https://github.com/<YOUR_NAME>/lvgl) by clicking the "New pull request" button. Don't forget to select the branch where you added your changes.
Set the base branch. It means where you want to merge your update. In the lvgl repo both the fixes and new features go to master branch.
Describe what is in the update. An example code is welcome if applicable.
If you need to make more changes, just update your forked lvgl repo with new commits. They will automatically appear in the PR.

Commit message format

The commit messages format is inspired by Angular Commit Format.

The following structure should be used:

<type>(<scope>): <subject>
<BLANK LINE>
<body>
<BLANK LINE>
<footer>

Possible <type>s:

fix bugfix in the source code.
feat new feature
arch architectural changes
perf changes that affect the performance
example anything related to examples (even fixes and new examples)
docs anything related to the documentation (even fixes, formatting, and new pages)
test anything related to tests (new and updated tests or CI actions)
chore any minor formatting or style changes that would make the changelog noisy

<scope> is the module, file, or sub-system that is affected by the commit. It's usually one word and can be chosen freely. For example img, layout, txt, anim. The scope can be omitted.

<subject> contains a short description of the change:

use the imperative, present tense: "change" not "changed" nor "changes"
don't capitalize the first letter
no dot (.) at the end
max 90 characters

<body> optional and can be used to describe the details of this change.

<footer> shall contain

the words "BREAKING CHANGE" if the changes break the API
reference to the GitHub issue or Pull Request if applicable.

Some examples:

fix(img): update size if a new source is set
fix(bar): fix memory leak The animations weren't deleted in the destructor.

Fixes: #1234
feat: add span widget

The span widget allows mixing different font sizes, colors and styles. It's similar to HTML <span>
docs(porting): fix typo

Developer Certification of Origin (DCO)

Overview

To ensure all licensing criteria are met for every repository of the LVGL project, we apply a process called DCO (Developer's Certificate of Origin).

The text of DCO can be read here: https://developercertificate.org/.

By contributing to any repositories of the LVGL project you agree that your contribution complies with the DCO.

If your contribution fulfills the requirements of the DCO no further action is needed. If you are unsure feel free to ask us in a comment.

Accepted licenses and copyright notices

To make the DCO easier to digest, here are some practical guides about specific cases:

Your own work

The simplest case is when the contribution is solely your own work. In this case you can just send a Pull Request without worrying about any licensing issues.

Use code from online source

If the code you would like to add is based on an article, post or comment on a website (e.g. StackOverflow) the license and/or rules of that site should be followed.

For example in case of StackOverflow a notice like this can be used:

/* The original version of this code-snippet was published on StackOverflow.
 * Post: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345
 * Author: http://stackoverflow.com/users/12345/username
 * The following parts of the snippet were changed:
 * - Check this or that
 * - Optimize performance here and there
 */
 ... code snippet here ...

Use MIT licensed code

As LVGL is MIT licensed, other MIT licensed code can be integrated without issues. The MIT license requires a copyright notice be added to the derived work. Any derivative work based on MIT licensed code must copy the original work's license file or text.

Use GPL licensed code

The GPL license is not compatible with the MIT license. Therefore, LVGL can not accept GPL licensed code.

Ways to contribute

Even if you're just getting started with LVGL there are plenty of ways to get your feet wet. Most of these options don't even require knowing a single line of LVGL code.

Below we have collected some opportunities about the ways you can contribute to LVGL.

Give LVGL a Star

Show that you like LVGL by giving it star on GitHub!

Star

This simple click makes LVGL more visible on GitHub and makes it more attractive to other people. So with this, you already helped a lot!

Tell what you have achieved

Have you already started using LVGL in a Simulator, a development board, or on your custom hardware? Was it easy or were there some obstacles? Are you happy with the result? Showing your project to others is a win-win situation because it increases your and LVGL's reputation at the same time.

You can post about your project on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, create a YouTube video, and so on. Only one thing: On social media don't forget to add a link to https://lvgl.io or https://github.com/lvgl and use the hashtag #lvgl. Thank you! :)

You can also open a new topic in the My projects category of the Forum.

The LVGL Blog welcomes posts from anyone. It's a good place to talk about a project you created with LVGL, write a tutorial, or share some nice tricks. The latest blog posts are shown on the homepage of LVGL to make your work more visible.

The blog is hosted on GitHub. If you add a post GitHub automatically turns it into a website. See the README of the blog repo to see how to add your post.

Any of these help to spread the word and familiarize new developers with LVGL.

If you don't want to speak about your project publicly, feel free to use Contact form on lvgl.io to private message to us.

Write examples

As you learn LVGL you will probably play with the features of widgets. Why not publish your experiments?

Each widgets' documentation contains examples. For instance, here are the examples of the Drop-down list widget. The examples are directly loaded from the lvgl/examples folder.

So all you need to do is send a Pull request to the lvgl repository and follow some conventions:

Name the examples like lv_example_<widget_name>_<index>.
Make the example as short and simple as possible.
Add comments to explain what the example does.
Use 320x240 resolution.
Update index.rst in the example's folder with your new example. To see how other examples are added, look in the lvgl/examples/widgets folder.

Improve the docs

As you read the documentation you might see some typos or unclear sentences. All the documentation is located in the lvgl/docs folder. For typos and straightforward fixes, you can simply edit the file on GitHub.

Note that the documentation is also formatted in Markdown.

Report bugs

As you use LVGL you might find bugs. Before reporting them be sure to check the relevant parts of the documentation.

If it really seems like a bug feel free to open an issue on GitHub.

When filing the issue be sure to fill out the template. It helps find the root of the problem while avoiding extensive questions and exchanges with other developers.

Send fixes

The beauty of open-source software is you can easily dig in to it to understand how it works. You can also fix or adjust it as you wish.

If you found and fixed a bug don't hesitate to send a Pull request with the fix.

In your Pull request please also add a line to `CHANGELOG.md <https://github.com/lvgl/lvgl/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md>`__.

Join the conversations in the Forum

It feels great to know you are not alone if something is not working. It's even better to help others when they struggle with something.

While you were learning LVGL you might have had questions and used the Forum to get answers. As a result, you probably have more knowledge about how LVGL works.

One of the best ways to give back is to use the Forum and answer the questions of newcomers - like you were once.

Just read the titles and if you are familiar with the topic don't hesitate to share your thoughts and suggestions.

Participating in the discussions is one of the best ways to become part of the project and get to know like-minded people!

Add features

If you have created a cool widget, or added useful feature to LVGL feel free to open a new PR for it. We collect the optional features (a.k.a. plugins) in lvgl/src/extra folder so if you are interested in adding a new features please use this folder. The README file describes the basics rules of contribution and also lists some ideas.

For further ideas take a look at the Roadmap page. If you are interested in any of them feel free to share your opinion and/or participate in the implementation.

Other features which are (still) not on the road map are listed in the Feature request category of the Forum.

When adding a new features the following also needs to be updated:

Update lv_conf_template.h
Add description in the docs
Add examples
Update the changelog

Become a maintainer

If you want to become part of the core development team, you can become a maintainer of a repository.

By becoming a maintainer:

You get write access to that repo:
- Add code directly without sending a pull request
- Accept pull requests - Close/reopen/edit issues - Your input has higher impact when we are making decisions

You can become a maintainer by invitation, however the following conditions need to met 1. Have > 50 replies in the Forum. You can look at your stats here 2. Send > 5 non-trivial pull requests to the repo where you would like to be a maintainer

If you are interested, just send a message (e.g. from the Forum) to the current maintainers of the repository. They will check if the prerequisites are met. Note that meeting the prerequisites is not a guarantee of acceptance, i.e. if the conditions are met you won't automatically become a maintainer. It's up to the current maintainers to make the decision.

Move your project repository under LVGL organization

Besides the core lvgl repository there are other repos for ports to development boards, IDEs or other environment. If you ported LVGL to a new platform we can host it under the LVGL organization among the other repos.

This way your project will become part of the whole LVGL project and can get more visibility. If you are interested in this opportunity just open an issue in lvgl repo and tell what you have!

If we agree that your port fit well into the LVGL organization, we will open a repository for your project where you will have admin rights.

To make this concept sustainable there a few rules to follow:

You need to add a README to your repo.
We expect to maintain the repo to some extent
Follow at least the major versions of LVGL
Respond to the issues (in a reasonable time)
If there is no activity in a repo for 1 year it will be archived