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“CVS Instructions” tab now available for all Drupal.org projects

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Drupal’s CVS is now more user-friendly!

As part of the Documentation Sprint at Drupalcon DC 2009, web chef David Strauss built a “CVS Instructions” tab for Drupal.org. The tab provides concise, step-by-step instructions on how to check out, commit, patch, tag, and branch any module or theme. A simple drop-down box at the top of the page allows the user to select the version of the module or theme they want to work with, and the instructions are updated to display exact, copy-and-pastable commands.

Here’s an example of the CVS Instructions tab for the 6.x-1.x branch of Author Taxonomy.

This tiny feature represents a huge step forward in Drupal’s approach to opening its doors to contributors of all skill levels. This is especially important for those designers among us, many of whom cannot contribute themes — something Drupal sorely lacks — because they do not understand Drupal’s arcane CVS or command-line interaction in general. At Drupalcon DC, we designers pledged to learn and use the developer-oriented tools used by the Drupal community — namely IRC and CVS. Simple steps like the “CVS Instructions” tab move mountains for those who would otherwise give up and not contribute anything at all.