Doc suggestions for contribute.phtml and http://www.gnucash.org/en/hacking.phtml

TomF TomF at sjpc.org
Tue Jan 28 20:31:19 CST 2003


In http://www.gnucash.org/en/contribute.phtml:

Replace:

If you are a programmer, here is how you can help:

Get on the gnucash-devel  mailing list. Set up CVS on your machine, and
check out the source code. 

by:

If you are a programmer, here is how you can help:

Get on the gnucash-devel mailing list.   Set up CVS on your machine,
and check out the source code. 

Get on the gnucash-devel at lists.gnucash.org mailing list.  Read
http://www.gnucash.org/en/hacking.phtml.  (Note: The
lists at lists.sourceforge.net are separate and inactive. gnucash does
not use sourceforge, except as a download site.)  

Set up CVS on your machine, and check out the source code.





In http://www.gnucash.org/en/hacking.phtml

Replace the first seven paragraphs by:

Hacking GnuCash

There are a number of steps to go through to hack on gnucash. You will
need to install development (*-devel-*) versions of the packages listed
on the tools page. The latest development versions of gnucash may depend
on bleeding edge versions of some gnome tools (e.g. gnome-print). You
may also need to get unusual or special versions of g-wrap and guppi.

Getting the most recent sources via CVS:

The latest source code, as well as various older versions, are
maintained in a publically readable CVS source code repository.
Accessing it is simple, and if you plan to be an active developer, there
is no better way of getting the source. The CVS tree is not publically
writable; once you have patches, you should submit them to the
gnucash-patches mailing list.  Documentation changes can be sent to the
same place.

If you do not already have a CVS client, see
http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?docid=768&group_id=1#cvsbasics
and http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/, to learn how to set one up for use
with the pserver protocol.

To access the CVS tree, first, login, as so:
cvs -d :pserver:cvs at cvs.gnucash.org:/home/cvs/cvsroot login

The password is "guest", and you will be returned immediately to a
command prompt.

Next, to get a copy of the latest/beta development
version (which is currently version 1.7.x), do a cvs -d
:pserver:cvs at cvs.gnucash.org:/home/cvs/cvsroot checkout gnucash

Older versions and branches can be accessed with tags. The branch
containing the latest version of the stable gnucash-1.6.x code is marked
with the tag gnucash-1-6-branch . Thus, to check out the latest in the
the gnucash-1.6.x series, do the following: cvs -d
:pserver:cvs at cvs.gnucash.org:/home/cvs/cvsroot checkout -r
gnucash-1-6-branch gnucash

You may find it convenient to start with a distributed binary of
gnucash, in order to get dependencies resolved.  For example, Redhat 8.0
provides gnome-desktop-devel-2.0.6-4.i386.rpm, but gnucash does not
currently support gnome2 (as of 28Jan2003).  To find a path through the
"dependencies hell" this leads to, you could use the following
procedure:

1) try to install the gnucash binary from your distribution.  For
example, gnucash-1.6.6-7.i386.rpm 
2) note the missing dependencies
3) install those dependencies and associated -devel packages (if any)
4) go to step 1
5) once you get gnucash installed, remove it
6) download the source for the latest gnucash development version from
CVS.  All dependecies except for g-wrap are the same in gnucash 1.6.x
and 1.7.x
7) remove g-wrap, if necessary
8) download g-wrap-1.3.4 from http://http.gnucash.org/pub/g-wrap/ 
9) build g-wrap and gnucash
10) install additional -devel packages when configure complains

If any of these steps don't make sense to you, you probably need more
background material.  Start with the README file in the source tree at
http://www.gnucash.org/lxr/, and follow the links until you have learned
what you need to get started.


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