Stack FAQ

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written by Robin Luckey
sep 10 2008
 
What is a stack?
What projects should go in my stack?
How do I add a project to my stack?
How do I create a second stack? Why would I?
How can I use stacks to promote my project?
Does Ohloh offer any stack widgets?
Why does my stack widget look bad in IE6?
What is a stack?

A stack is the set of programs that are combined to create a software system. The most common example of a stack is LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python). On Ohloh, a stack is a collection of all the open source projects you use.

What projects should go in my stack?

What goes into your stack is completely up to you. Add any open source projects you use: tools, libraries, frameworks, etc.

How do I add a project to my stack?

There are three ways:

  1. From the main page of a project, e.g. Subversion, click on I USE THIS in the Users area:who<em>uses</em>sample
    You'll now be able to pick the stack to add the project to, or can pick to create a new stack with this project.

  2. From your stacks page, you can navigate to one of your stacks. The Recommendations panel will pick projects you're likely to find interesting. Click I USE IT on any suggestion you like: recommendations panel

  3. Also on the same page, you can also directly add a project using Add Project. add<em>project</em>sample
How do I create a second stack? Why would I?

Your stacks page has a New Stack button on the top right. Click it and you have a new stack. Change the stack name and description by clicking on them and typing.

Consider creating a different stack for each software system you develop, maintain, use. For instance, your database server likely runs a stack that is quite different from your development machine which might be quite different from your webserver. Some other stacks: Home, Gaming. Add whatever you want.

How do additional stacks affect the stack count of projects?

Ohloh now counts the number of people who use a project, rather than number of stacks. Including a project in multiple stacks will not increase it's User count.

How can I use stacks to promote my project?

Ask your users to come to Ohloh, register for an account and stack your project. This increases your User count and makes your project more appealing to potential users.

Does Ohloh offer any stack widgets?

Ohloh has stack widgets that you can embed. Click Embed on the stacks or an individual stack page to get started. Here's a sample: stack_sample

Why does my stack widget look bad in IE6?

It might be because the page is being rendered by IE6 in quirks mode. If you have control of the page, you can fix this by adding a xhtml preamble, e.g.: 

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">