This document goes over how you (and/or your organization) are expected to contribute. These guidelines are softly enforced and sometimes not required.
We use Crowdin to handle translations into many languages, and you can join the [StreamFX project on Crowdin](https://crowdin.com/project/obs-stream-effects) if you are interested in improving the translations to your native tongue. As Crowdin handles all other languages, Pull Requests therefore should only include changes to `en-US.ini`.
Commits should focus on a single change such as formatting, fixing a bug, a warning across the code, and similar things. This means that you should not include a fix to color format handling in a commit that implements a new encoder, or include a fix to a bug with a fix to a warning.
This project prefers the linear history of `git rebase` and forbids merge commits. This allows all branches to be a single line back to the root, unless viewed as a whole where it becomes a tree. If you are working on a branch for a feature, bug or other thing, you should know how to rebase back onto the main branch before making a pull request.
The `short description` should be no longer than 80 characters, excluding the `prefix: ` part. The `optional long description` should be present if the change is not immediately obvious - however it does not replace proper documentation.
#### The correct `prefix`
Depending on where the file is that you ended up modifying, or if you modified multiple files at once, the prefix changes. Take a look at the list to understand which directories cause which prefix:
-`/CMakeLists.txt`, `/cmake` -> `cmake`
-`/.github/workflows` -> `ci`
-`/data/locale`, `/crowdin.yml` -> `locale`
-`/data/examples` -> `examples`
-`/data` -> `data` (if not part of another prefix)
-`/media` -> `media`
-`/source`, `/include` -> `code`
-`/templates` -> `templates` (or merge with `cmake`)
If multiple locations match, they should be alphabetically sorted and separated by `, `. A change to both `ui` and `code` will as such result in a prefix of `code, ui`. If a `code` change only affects a single file, or multiple files with a common parent file, the prefix should be the path of the file, like shown in the following examples:
Documentation should be present in areas where it would save time to new developers, and in areas where an API is defined. This means that you should not provide documentation for things like `1 + 1`, but for things like the following:
Both of these examples would be much easier to understand if they had proper documentation, and save hours if not even days of delving into code. Documentation is about saving time to new developers, and can't be replaced by code. Code is not Documentation!
All long-term objects should have a descriptive name, which can be used by other developers to know what it is for. Temporary objects should also have some information, but do not necessarily follow the same rules.
Pre-processor Macros are a "last stand" option, when all other options fail or would produce worse results. If possible and cleaner to do so, prefer the use of `constexpr` code.
All class members must be `private` and only accessible through get-/setters. The setter of a member should also validate if the setting is within an allowed range, and throw exceptions if an error occurs. If there is no better option, it is allowed to delay validation until a common function is called.