New youtube series for contributers

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Hi @MissyQ, Hi @frenck,

I wanted to share how much I’m enjoying the new YouTube series where you delve into specific topics like dashboards, Matter, voice control, etc. These videos are incredibly informative!

I noticed you often encourage contributions to the project, and I think it would be fantastic to dedicate a YouTube series to helping developers get started with contributing. Personally, I’d love to contribute more but I’m not sure where to begin. I have created a custom integration (linked to HACS), but this was already quite a challenge to start on.

While there’s plenty of documentation available, I find that I learn better through videos, and I’m sure many others feel the same way. A series focused on how to start contributing to the Home Assistant project would be incredibly valuable. For example, I recently reported an issue on the frontend GitHub about the new badges. It’s likely a JavaScript or CSS issue, and while I want to help contribute and have knowledge in HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, Python, and PowerShell, I’m unsure where to find and edit the code for the badges for example.

Here are some ideas for the series:

  • Where to find the code
  • How to edit/test the code
  • How to create a dev environment
  • How to report an issue
  • Overview of the code languages used in Home Assistant
  • Where to find specific code for review (e.g., badges, cards)
  • How to create a custom integration
  • Upgrading your (custom) integration from configuration YAML to config flow
  • Best practices for contributing to open-source projects
  • How to navigate the Home Assistant GitHub repository
  • Tips for debugging and testing your contributions

I believe such a series would not only help current users but also attract new contributors to the project.

Thanks for considering this idea!

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Hey

Great idea all the more for developping integrations, I wanted multiple times in the past to develop some integrations but just gave up with all difficulties following up tutorials on how to setup dev environnment :frowning:

Vincèn

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@balloob Any thoughts on this?

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@djansen1987 My two main issues for developping integrations for HA (because I have a bunch of them I’d like to develop for pro AV devices !)
→ I have always been working on linux and I’m extremely disappointed to discover that to develop for one of my favorite open-source project: HA I have to install some softwares developped by companies that ruin open source (VS and Micro$oft)
→ the alternative, at that path I don’t want to go to as it disrespects code I’m going to write, is just a nightmare.
I know and fully understand it’s not a priority but it would be fantastic to have an easier way to setup a dev environment to write integration/code for HA :wink: because right now, based on my experience, the main problem to start writing integrations is not to learn Python but to succeed to setup a dev environment easily and without having to install some Micro$oft softwares.

Just my point of view and feedback if it can help :wink: