---
layout: page
title: Contributing
permalink: /development/
categories: [ _nav, _9 ]
---

h3. Development sources

To get started with Irssi development, first check out the git repository:

bc. git clone https://github.com/irssi/irssi
  
After check-out, you *must* run @./autogen.sh@. It may be necessary to install additional packages. More information can be found on "(rel-external)the wiki.":https://github.com/shabble/irssi-docs/wiki/Irssi-0.8.17#compiling-from-git

h2. Helping Development

Hey you! Irssi is desperately looking for developers. No groundbreaking development has occured since ten years. Apart from fixing "(rel-external)bugs"://github.com/irssi/irssi/issues and reviewing "(rel-external)patches"://github/com/irssi/irssi/pulls, there are also many huge issues which noone is tackling at the moment. Some of those are:

* Rewrite the fe-text front-end to include vertical splits, flexible and multi-line status bars, vertical bars, zoom, layout pre-sets, dynamic themes, message tags, time-stamped messages, etc.
* Rewrite the core to optionally work in a distributed manner (where you can run the server connections on one server and connect to it with multiple fe-text front-ends)
* Revamp the API to better integrate multiple scripting languages (like Javascript, Lua) and require less (Perl-specific) glue code
* Fix and improve network Proxy support (SSL-enabled proxies, SSL connections over proxies, native SOCKS proxies in Irssi, better TOR support, per network proxies) ("#148"://github.com/irssi/irssi/pull/148)
* Extend the IRC code to work better with any IRCv3 features.
* XMPP improvements
* Website improvements

Also review the "(rel-external)Unofficial Roadmap"://github.com/shabble/irssi-docs/wiki/Roadmap for a further source of TODOs.

If you're lucky, you might find issues in the tracker that are "(rel-external)labeled 'easy'"://github.com/irssi/irssi/labels/easy

h3. Scripts

Perl scripts can be submitted to the "(rel-external)Irssi Script Repository":http://scripts.irssi.org/ by following the instructions and sending a Pull Request on Github. Next to the perl and signals "documentation":/documentation/, the "(rel-external)Unofficial Irssi Scripting Documentation Wiki"://github.com/shabble/irssi-docs/wiki may have additional helpful resources about writing scripts.

h3. Themes

Most of the existing documentation regarding themes can be found in the @default.theme@ file created by Irssi when you @/save@, or @/save -formats@. Much of themeing is artistic skills combined with trial and error. Nice themes can be submitted to the "(rel-external)Irssi Themes Collection"://irssi-import.github.io/themes/ through a Github Pull Request.