Reporting Bugs

Like any software, Flixel has (maybe more than) its fair share of bugs, idiosyncracies and unpredictable behavior. If you find something that just seems a little bit (or way, way) off, there are a few different avenues for reporting these issues.

• GitHub Issues Queue: If you've found a bug, or want to make a particular suggestion, this is the best channel for that. Each issue has its own thread, and it is very easy to go through this list at maintenance time..
• The Flixel Forums: If you are stuck or seeing unexpected behavior, the Help board on the Flixel forums is a good place to get fast community feedback. Bug reports there are easy to lose track of, however!
• Flixel on Twitter: I don't recommend this path for bug reports, exactly, but it's really handy for some things. I also automatically syndicate any source code changes to that feed, so it's handy for updates too.

Creating Tutorials

My friend Chevy Ray and I run a game-making knowledgebase called the Flash Game Dojo. The Flash Game Dojo has special tags for Flixel, and is a great place to create and help maintain tutorials for using Flixel. There's also a special category of thing on the Dojo called Snippets. Each snippet addresses a specific question or problem with a few lines of source code. Contributing your knowledge to the Dojo, whether you are creating new tutorials or helping maintain existing snippets, is a great way to give back to the community.

Answering Questions

Flixel attracts new game creators on a pretty regular basis, which is fantastic, but we don't always have the bandwidth to answer everyone's questions. This is where you come in; whether you are active on the Dojo or the official Flixel forums, helping people make it over those first few hurdles is really helpful!

Sharing Your Source

The last few years have seen some fantastic public repository sites come to the fore, and sharing source code is easier than ever. While I personally prefer git and github, many developers find SVN and google code are a little more approachable. Windows users especially gravitate toward Tortoise. The point of these tools and sites, if it's not clear, is to upload and share the source code for your projects with the rest of the world. A lot of people learn best by example, and having a functional application out there to examine and pick apart is a phenomenal, invaluable community resource.