Contributing to the IDE

[Brian Milby]

I will add that building from source is not that hard for Mac or Linux
(have not tried Windows). I didn’t know what platform you were using which
is why I referenced the Readme since it had a section with links for each
one.

If you run into specific issues getting things set up then we can probably
help.
On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 9:40 PM Monte Goulding via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Hmm… OK Geoff, sorry for being flippant and causing a rant!
>
> I must admit I don’t know anything about GitKracken. I used to use
> SourceTree which I found quite reasonable, however, once working for the LC
> team I found it too slow and hard to do some of the more complicated things
> like interactive rebasing so I moved to command line.
>
> > None of it comes close to describing the steps necessary to set up on my
> computer to contribute.
>
> The issue I think you are bumping in to is you only really want to
> contribute to the IDE, however, to do so you really need to build livecode
> from source so you can work on the IDE directly in the respository. Because
> of that the notes linked in the README.md about building LC on different
> platforms under the section `Detailed instructions` are really what you are
> looking for. https://github.com/livecode/livecode#detailed-instructions <
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode#detailed-instructions>
> >
> > it offers nothing useful to figuring out how to set up to contribute.
>
> Yes it does. See above ^.
> >
> > I ran into this same problem when I started to put Navigator into
> GitHub: the GitHub documentation is absolutely abysmal. In that instance,
> the blame lies with literally everyone associated with Git and GitHub, but
> in the case of wanting to contribute to the LC IDE, the buck stops with the
> LC crew. I have asked others who are decades-long LC developers for
> guidance, and found that they don't understand how to contribute. That
> holds back development of LC and the IDE.
>
> OK, well we’d like to do better in this regard, however, we do tend to run
> into the problem that a large chunk of our experienced LC developers have
> no interest in reading about git or github. The very best thing you can do
> before anything else is understand git. There is bucket loads of freely
> available information online. This is a great free book
> https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2 <https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2>
> >
> > To be clear: reasonable documentation for contributing to the IDE would
> include a section something like:
> >
> > 1. Create an account on GitHub. Follow the guidelines mentioned
> elsewhere in this documentation.
>
> OK, this has presumably been seen as assumed knowledge til now… and/or
> GitHub’s responsibility do document how to use GitHub. I’m sure we can add
> something though!
>
> > 2. (optional) Install the graphic Git client of your choice (a list of
> possibilities is included at the bottom of this documentation).
>
> The problem here is there are lots of graphic git clients. All look
> different. Ali has spent quite some time documenting how to contribute via
> GitHub’s web interface.
>
> > 3. Determine which version of LC you want to contribute to. Note that
> only contributions to <version list> are being accepted at present.
>
> See
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#branches-in-github
> <
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#branches-in-github
> >
> > 4. Clone the repository for the LC version you have selected to your
> local drive.
>
> Yes, I agree there’s some missing bits here on forking on github, cloning
> and setting up the clone. I can give command line instructions and or write
> a script for you to run.
>
> Basically we use multiple repositories to build LiveCode. Ignoring the
> commercial repositories that only the team have access to the structure is:
>
> livecode
>    ide -> livecode-ide
>    thirdparty -> livecode-thirdparty
>
> Most of the ide stacks are in the livecode-ide repository, however, there
> are some in the ide-support folder of the livecode repository and we are
> gradually moving as many modular libraries as possible to the
> extensions/script-libraries folder of the livecode repository.
>
> The thirdparty repository is something that anyone outside the team is
> unlikely to need to patch so we can ignore that for now.
>
> So to work on the ide you really need to fork both
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode <https://github.com/livecode/livecode>
> and https://github.com/livecode/livecode-ide <
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode-ide>
>
> From there you need to do the equivalent of the following in your git
> client:
>
> git clone —recursive https://github.com/<yourgithubusername>/livecode.git
> <https://github.com/%3Cyourgithubusername%3E/livecode.git>
>
> This is basically downloading the source folder and it’s history into a
> folder named livecode.
>
> Once that is complete then there are a few changes to make to get setup:
>
> cd livecode
> git remote add upstream https://github.com/livecode/livecode.git <
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode.git>
> cd ide
> git remote rename origin upstream
> git remote add origin https://github.com/<yourgithubusername>/livecode.git
> <https://github.com/%3Cyourgithubusername%3E/livecode.git><yourgithubusername>
> <https://github.com/%3Cyourgithubusername%3E/livecode.git>/livecode.git
>
> Now you are ready to follow the configure and build instructions for your
> platform. If you are on mac you can build and run directly from Xcode, edit
> IDE stacks, save them and then make the patch via git.
>
> > Save it to your Applications folder.
>
> No… don’t do that… My clone is in my home folder… you can clone just
> somewhere it’s easy to work on.
>
> > Do not overwrite your working copy of LiveCode.
>
> Definitely don’t do that ;-)
>
> > 5. You will need to follow these additional steps to make that
> repository functional:
>
> If we are considering just IDE development then this step is probably
> building LC although see
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode#detailed-instructions <
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode#detailed-instructions> for your
> platform to work out the extra things that need to be installed on your
> system to build.
>
> > 6. License the copy of LC included in the repository.
>
> No need to do that as it’s community
>
> > 7. Make whatever changes to the IDE you wish. Note that you must segment
> your changes in individual branches; if you lump a large number of changes
> in one branch, your updates will almost certainly be rejected.
>
> See
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#creating-a-pull-request
> <
> https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md#creating-a-pull-request
> >
> > 8. When you have a branch ready to merge into the production copy of
> LiveCode, issue a pull request. Please follow the documentation
> descriptions listed below; if we can't understand your change, it will be
> rejected.
> >
> > To be more clear, I have no idea if the above is the correct sequence of
> steps. That's the problem I'm trying to solve, and neither of the
> referenced documents, nor any admonishment to study them in greater detail,
> will solve it.
>
> OK, point taken. If we can work out all the points that people feel are
> missing we would love for more people to be able to contribute. BTW here is
> a video I did for someone about using sourcetree which may or may not shed
> some light. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W14_fiRA6Wo&t=847s <
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W14_fiRA6Wo&t=847s>
>
> Cheers
>
> Monte
>
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