• KDE from a developer's viewpoint
• Do you need this book?
• The KDE philosophy and community
• How to get help
• First steps
• Choosing a project
• The Qt Framework
• Using Git for KDE Development
• Choosing an IDE
• KDE APIs
• Documentation
• KDE development build environment
• Prerequisites
• Other ways to build the KDE SC
• Scripted KDE builds (kdesrc-build)
• Troubleshooting your KDE build
• Advanced Topics
• Reading backtraces
• Appendices
• Useful tools
• Frequently asked questions
• General glossary and KDE jargon
• Useful links
• About this book
• Notes

How to get help

Of course, we hope our book is helpful to you! But inevitably, you will come up with questions or need help with a problem. The KDE community is helpful and friendly, so pick the most appropriate method in this chapter and ask away. Unless you have a specific need to talk to one particular person, please address the whole list or channel. 

KDE Mailing Lists

The KDE mailing lists are one of the main communication channels in the KDE Community. All developers will find the KDE-devel list useful. In addition, those working on the core of the KDE Software Compilation (SC) will want to subscribe to KDE-Core-devel. Those working on applications or KDE projects should subscribe to the project mailing list. The full spectrum of KDE lists can be found at https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo.

Both help and information are available on the lists. However, if you need help quickly, IRC may be more useful.

KDE on IRC

IRC is Internet Relay Chat, a text-only, real-time communication tool. There are a variety of IRC clients available from KDE, such as Konversation, Quassel, and Kvirc.

Almost all KDE developers show up or idle on KDE IRC channels on Freenode (irc.freenode.net). IRC is the best way to get quick help from the KDE developers. As a developer, you will want to be in #kde, #kde-devel and your project channel or channels. You'll find that the more time you spend in IRC, the more you will get to know your fellow developers and our KDE users. Life-long friendships have started in KDE channels. Help is available about the services such as chanserv and nickserv by using the commands  /msg chanserv help and /msg nickserv help. More about using Freenode is available here: http://freenode.net/using_the_network.shtml.

Userbase keeps a list of channels current at http://userbase.kde.org/IRC_Channels, and you can also use the IRC command /msg alis list $searchterm, where $searchterm is the subject in which you are interested.

When asking questions, please bear these tips in mind:

• If you have a question, just ask it. There's no need to ask first whether you can ask a question.
• Be prepared to wait for an answer. Even though IRC is a more real-time mode of communication than mailing lists, there may not be anyone available to answer your question immediately. In general, if you don't receive a response on IRC in about an hour, it's best to send an email.
• Don't ask your question more than once. Even though the channel is active, the right person may not be available to provide an answer. The one exception to this rule is that, if you are told to wait for a certain person to come online, ask again when you see him or her come online. Again, if you don't receive a response to your question in about an hour, it's probably best to send an email. 
• Pasting large amounts of text is considered bad etiquette, so use a pastebin. KDE's pastebin is at http://paste.kde.org

KDE Community Problems

If you encounter bad behavior on a list or in a channel, please contact the list owners or one of the ops. The list owner address is $listname-owner@kde.org, where $listname is the name of the list. Ops in a channel can be identified by issuing this command: /msg chanserv access #channelname list. Ops will have a "+" next to their nicks. For general KDE community help, please write to the Community Working Group at community-wg@kde.org, or stop by our IRC channel at #kde-cwg.