What you can do to contribute to rockbox

People Who Do Not Program

Rockbox is written in C, but even if you do not know C, you can still help:

• Run a BuildClient to help speed up our build cluster.
• Help with the RockboxManual. If you can figure out LaTeX, then that is preferred, but we accept plain text documents as well.
• Test plugin key maps and report problems.
• Help out in the bug tracker: Try to reproduce reported bugs and add details to the report that can help the developers find and fix the bugs.

People Who Can Program in C (or Lua)

See the DevelopmentGuide to setup the development tools and meet the community.

Then pick an area to work on.

Plugins

Rockbox plugins are programs ranging from games to utilities that can run in Rockbox, written in C or Lua. We always welcome new plugins, or improvements to existing plugins. Some plugins would benefit better graphics, improved controls or adapting to more screen sizes. Others like MPEG player or the Rockboy emulator could use additional optimization. If you want to write a new plugin, see HowtoWritePlugins.

Codecs

Codecs decode audio and feed it to the rockbox playback engine. Most codecs have a lot of optimization, but could use more. If you're interested in codec performance see CodecPerformanceComparison. Theres an overview of various rockbox CPUs here TargetSpecificOptimization. Other codecs may have compatibility issues. Finally new codecs are always welcome.

New Ports

Porting rockbox to a new target is one of the more difficult tasks. You'll need skills in C and possibly assembly programming to start a new port, but contributing to or improving an existing port often takes less experience. See NewPort and TargetStatus.

Improve Rockbox Core

Changes to the core of rockbox have a big effect on everyone, and so should be discussed with the community.

(todo: fill this out)

MrSomeonesTodoList is a short and highly abbreviated list of things that could be improved if you would like ideas.

Git Access

People who contribute substantial and well implemented improvements to Rockbox often get Git access, allowing them to change Rockbox without having to submit patches. Git access is granted by mutual agreement of the existing Rockbox developers that a new developer is a capable and well integrated into the community.