Adding a field to the profile

This is a page about improving or modifying OpenHatch.

We call that "Hacking OpenHatch," and there is a whole category of pages about that.

Introduction and prerequisites

In this walkthrough, we will explore the process of adding a new feature to the OpenHatch website. The change we will make will be done directly in the OpenHatch Django code. In so doing, we'll learn how to go from an idea for a top-level UI feature change, to searching and studying the code, to making and testing this change.

The goal of this exercise is to expose you to the techniques used by OpenHatch developers when changing the website, give you confidence in order to try similar things on your own, and expose you to some helpful techniques that you might not know about.

Skills you need

In order to do this tutorial, you need to be comfortable at a terminal and willing to learn some programming.

Getting help

If you try this and you get stuck, come come chat with us on IRC. Explain what you're doing, and what's not working, and we'll try to get you un-stuck. The same goes for if you can do the exercises but don't understand what they mean.

Getting the source

You'll need a local, running version of the OpenHatch code. To get that, visit the Get started with the OpenHatch code.