Asking the community for help

Part 1, chapter 20. Sooner or later you will be stuck. The people who build Exponential and its extensions answer questions in public places, and a well asked question usually gets an answer. This chapter tells you where to ask, how to ask, and what never to post.

Before you ask #

Most questions are answered by one of these, in this order:

1. The debug report and var/log/error.log (Debug output and logs for developers).
2. The help center's search: type the class, setting or error message.
3. The extension's own README.md and doc/.
4. git log -S "<the text of the error>" in the kernel or the extension: maybe it was changed recently, with a message that explains why.
5. The forums and eZpedia, searched for the error message.

If none of these answers it, ask. Say in your question what you already tried; it saves everyone a round trip.

Where to ask #

The administration has a guide for bug reports: Help > Report an error (exphelp/report) fills in a summary of the installation and opens a prepared GitHub issue. See When something goes wrong.

Before you file a bug, ask yourself whether the behavior might be deliberate: in Exponential, as in any project, some of it is open to interpretation and other sites rely on it. Changing such a negative feature needs a clear justification and several rounds of review, and an option is far easier to accept than a new default.

How to write a question people can answer #

A good question has five parts:

What I want to do:   <one sentence>
What I did:          <the code or template, as small as possible>
What I expected:     <the result you wanted>
What happened:       <the exact error message, the debug report lines>
My environment:      Exponential <version>, PHP <version>, database <type>, design <name>

• Make it small. Cut your code down to the smallest piece that still shows the problem. Often you find the answer while doing it.
• Paste text, not screenshots of code and errors, in code blocks, so people can copy and search them.
• Name versions. ./console --version prints Exponential's version; php -v the PHP version. Setup > System information has Copy report as text, which leaves out passwords.
• Say what you tried and what each attempt did.
• Come back. Answer follow-up questions, and when it is solved, say how. The next person with the same problem will find your thread.

What never to post #

• Passwords, API keys, tokens, the contents of settings/override/ or config.php.
• Database dumps, user lists, e-mail addresses or any personal data of your site's users or customers.
• Internal host names and IP addresses of your servers.
• Code you are not allowed to share (a client's proprietary code). Reduce it to a neutral example instead.

Check the error lines you paste: some contain paths or user names. Replace them with placeholders.

Security problems: privately #

A security problem (a way to read data without permission, to run code, to take over an account) is never reported in a public tracker or forum. The kernel's SECURITY.md says how: by e-mail to [email protected], or through GitHub's private vulnerability reporting on the repository. You will be told whether the report is accepted and kept informed while a fix is prepared. For a third-party extension, look for its own SECURITY.md; if there is none, contact its maintainers privately before saying anything in public.

Give back #

Once you are not stuck any more, someone else is. Answer one question a week in the forum you learned most from. Growing the community through code has more ways to help.

You finished Part 1 #

You know what an extension is, you have a development installation, you can read the code and the logs, and you know where to find ideas and how to reuse them fairly. Continue with Part 2: The builder.

Related pages #

• Previous: Debug output and logs for developers
• Next: Part 2: The builder: settings, templates and overrides
• When something goes wrong
• Writing good issues
• Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.

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