Improve the CHANGELOG file

[jrfnl]

History

Originally, the changelog was maintained in a package.xml file, which was a requirement for releasing to PEAR.

With the move from the squizlabs repo to this repo and the dropping of support for PEAR, the changelog was moved to a CHANGELOG.md file, which was based on the work previously done for this for the 4.0 branch (commits bce4cf5, aedf523 and 4783156) and updated for any missing releases.

As things are, the changelog currently contains issue references which are not links, which makes the changelog not very user friendly.

For the 3.8.0 release, I've already added links for issues referenced and while that is a start, a lot more can be improved.

What I'd like to see improved

1. Contributor handles should be links.
   As there are a lot of repeat contributors, I think an alphabetically ordered link list at the very bottom of the changelog for this would be best as it will prevent duplicate references.
   This part has been addressed via PR Changelog: add links to contributors #243.
2. All issue/PR references should be links.
   The links for these should be added in a link list below each release, like done for the 3.8.0 release.
   Keep in mind that issue/PR references could be references to this repo, to the squizlabs repo, or to the PEAR repo. See Changelog: update link lists to prevent duplicate link definitions #410 for the link patterns to use.
   This part has been addressed via a range of PRs linked to this ticket.
3. Use proper MarkDown markup for the texts in the changelogs.
4. Check the text for spelling and grammar errors.

How to contribute

Note: these tasks do not have to be executed in one go. They can be done bit by bit starting with the more recent changelogs and working back to the older ones.

Small commits/PRs addressing the above action items for one or two releases at a time can keep this ticket moving forward without all the work having to be done in one go/the burden of executing this task falling on one person.

If you are interested in contributing to this task, leave a comment on this ticket with details on what you will be working on (to prevent duplicate work being done by multiple contributors).

[rodrigoprimo]

I can help. I will start with version 3.7.2, and after the PR is approved, I can work on more versions.

[rodrigoprimo]

Next, I will work on versions 3.7.1 and 3.7.0.

[rodrigoprimo]

I will now tackle versions 3.6.2, 3.6.1, and 3.6.0.

[rodrigoprimo]

Claiming 3.5.0 - 3.5.8