Features/Feature Template


Comments and Explanations:

There are comments (in italic) providing guidance to fill out each section, see also Features/Policy. Copy the source to a new page named Features/Your Feature Name before making changes! DO NOT EDIT THIS TEMPLATE.


Summary

A sentence or two summarizing what this feature is and what it will do. This information is used for the overall feature summary page for each release.

Owner

This should link to your home wiki page so we know who you are

Include you email address that you can be reached should people want to contact you about helping with your feature, status is requested, or technical issues need to be resolved

  • Email: <your email address so we can contact you, invite you to meetings, etc.>

Current status

  • Targeted release: (SUGAR_VERSION)
  • Last updated: (DATE)
  • Percentage of completion: XX%

Detailed Description

Expand on the summary, if appropriate. A couple sentences suffices to explain the goal, but the more details you can provide the better.

Benefit to Sugar

What is the benefit to the platform? If this is a major capability update, what has changed? If this is a new feature, what capabilities does it bring? Why will Sugar become a better platform or project because of this feature?

Make sure to note here as well if this feature has been requested by a specific deployment, or if it has emerged from a bug report.

Scope

What work do the developers have to accomplish to complete the feature in time for release? Is it a large change affecting many parts of the distribution or is it a very isolated change? What are those changes?

UI Design

Does the feature has direct impact on the work flow, or does need a UI? Add and link here mockups or detailed descriptions.

How To Test

Features/Feature Template/Testing

This does not need to be a full-fledged document. Describe the dimensions of tests that this feature is expected to pass when it is done. If it needs to be tested with different hardware or software configurations, indicate them. The more specific you can be, the better the community testing can be.

Remember that you are writing this how to for interested testers to use to check out your feature - documenting what you do for testing is OK, but it's much better to document what *I* can do to test your feature.

A good "how to test" should answer these four questions:

  • What special hardware / data / etc. is needed (if any)?
  • How do I prepare my system to test this feature? What packages need to be installed, config files edited, etc.?
  • What specific actions do I perform to check that the feature is working like it's supposed to?
  • What are the expected results of those actions?

User Experience

If this feature is noticeable by its target audience, how will their experiences change as a result? Describe what they will see or notice.

Dependencies

What other packages (RPMs) depend on this package? Are there changes outside the developers' control on which completion of this feature depends? In other words, completion of another feature owned by someone else and might cause you to not be able to finish on time or that you would need to coordinate? Other upstream projects like python?

Contingency Plan

If you cannot complete your feature by the final development freeze, what is the backup plan? This might be as simple as "None necessary, revert to previous release behaviour." Or it might not. If you feature is not completed in time we want to assure others that other parts of Sugar will not be in jeopardy.

Documentation

Is there upstream documentation on this feature, or notes you have written yourself? Has this topic been discussed in the mailing list or during a meeting? Link to that material here so other interested developers can get involved.

Release Notes

The Sugar Release Notes inform end-users about what is new in the release. An Example is 0.84/Notes. The release notes also help users know how to deal with platform changes such as ABIs/APIs, configuration or data file formats, or upgrade concerns. If there are any such changes involved in this feature, indicate them here. You can also link to upstream documentation if it satisfies this need. This information forms the basis of the release notes edited by the release team and shipped with the release.

Comments and Discussion