Contributing to pH7Builder 💖

Thank you for helping to make pH7Builder the best free dating/social web app builder! Any contribution — bug fixes, features, docs, translations — is welcome and highly appreciated.

Quick start (development setup)

git clone https://github.com/pH7Software/pH7-Social-Dating-CMS.git
cd pH7-Social-Dating-CMS
docker compose up --build
docker compose exec php php _install/create-install-token.php

Enter the printed token at http://localhost:8080 to run the installer. The development database uses host db, database and username ph7builder, and password ph7builder. Because Docker snapshots the checkout into a named volume, run docker compose down -v before rebuilding after source changes. This deletes the local application and database volumes.

Without Docker: install dependencies with composer install, then use any PHP

= 8.2 installation with the extensions listed in composer.json, MySQL 8.0+, and Apache/nginx (see nginx.conf / sample.htaccess).

Before you open a pull request

1. Follow the Code Convention. The short version:
   • Variables use camelCase with a type-prefix (Hungarian notation): $sName (string), $iCount (int), $aItems (array), $oUser (object), $bEnabled (bool), $mValue (mixed), $fPrice (float).
   • Framework classes end in .class.php, traits in .trait.php, interfaces in .interface.php (with a -ble name when possible). App classes under _protected/app are plain .php.
   • Constants are ALL_CAPS; functions and asset files are lowercase_with_underscores.
2. Run the code style fixer on the files you touched:

   _protected/vendor/bin/php-cs-fixer fix --path-mode=intersection <changed files>
   

3. Run the tests and static analysis — both must stay green:

   composer test      # deterministic PHPUnit suite
   composer analyse   # PHPStan
   

   The separate composer test-integration suite requires an installed local application and the external services or API credentials exercised by those tests.
4. Keep commits focused and their messages descriptive. Small, reviewable pull requests get merged faster.

Theme/CSS contributions: _tools/theme-preview.html renders the base theme's CSS chain against sample markup without a full install — serve the repo root (e.g. python3 -m http.server 8642) and open it to check your changes, in both light and dark mode.

Reporting bugs & proposing features

• Bugs: use the issue tracker and the bug-report template.
• Ideas and questions: the discussions board.
• Security vulnerabilities: please do not open a public issue — see SECURITY.md.

All contributions are manually reviewed. By contributing, you agree your code is released under the project's MIT License.