CONTRIBUTING.md

Contributing to FEAScript

Thank you for your interest in contributing! FEAScript is in early development, with continuous additions of new features and improvements. To ensure a smooth and collaborative development process, please review and follow the guidelines below.

Contribution Guidelines

1. Respect the existing coding style: Observe the code near your intended changes and aim to preserve that style in your modifications.

2. Recommended tools:
   We recommend using Visual Studio Code with the Prettier plugin for automatic code formatting. Additionally, use a 110-character line width to maintain consistent formatting.

3. Naming conventions:
   Use camelCase formatting for variable names throughout the code.

4. Testing changes locally:
   Before submitting a pull request, test your modifications by running the FEAScript library from a local directory. For example, you can load the library in your HTML file as follows:

   import { FEAScriptModel, plotSolution, printVersion } from "[USER_DIRECTORY]/FEAScript-core/src/index.js";

   FEAScript can be run on a local server. To start a local server, you can use Python HTTP Server:

   python -m http.server

   where the server will be available at http://127.0.0.1:8000/. Static file server npm packages like serve and Vite can also be used.

Branching & Workflow

To contribute a new feature or fix:

• Do not commit directly to main or dev.
• Instead, start your work in a feature branch based on the dev branch.

If you are not a member of the repository (e.g., an external contributor), you must first fork the repository. Make your changes in your fork, then submit a Pull Request from your fork's feature branch into thedev branch.

File Structure Guidelines

All files in the FEAScript-core codebase should follow this structure:

1. Banner: All files start with the FEAScript ASCII art banner
2. Imports:
   • External imports (from npm packages) first, alphabetically ordered
   • Internal imports next, grouped by module/folder
3. Classes/Functions: Implementation with proper JSDoc comments

Example:

//   ______ ______           _____           _       _     //
//  |  ____|  ____|   /\    / ____|         (_)     | |    //
//  | |__  | |__     /  \  | (___   ___ ____ _ ____ | |_   //
//  |  __| |  __|   / /\ \  \___ \ / __|  __| |  _ \| __|  //
//  | |    | |____ / ____ \ ____) | (__| |  | | |_) | |    //
//  |_|    |______/_/    \_\_____/ \___|_|  |_|  __/| |    //
//                                            | |   | |    //
//                                            |_|   | |_   //
//       Website: https://feascript.com/             \__|  //

// External imports
import { mathLibrary } from "math-package";

// Internal imports
import { relatedFunction } from "../utilities/helperScript.js";

/**
 * Class to handle specific functionality
 */
export class MyClass {
  /**
   * Constructor to initialize the class
   * @param {object} options - Configuration options
   */
  constructor(options) {
    // Implementation
  }

  /**
   * Function to perform a specific action
   * @param {number} input - Input value
   * @returns {number} Processed result
   */
  doSomething(input) {
    // Implementation
    return input * DEFAULT_VALUE;
  }
}