Contributing to the IDE

[Geoff Canyon]

I have to admit, this is very frustrating. I *have* read both documents
referenced, and neither comes close to answering my question. I remember
reading those documents, or their ancestors, when LC first went open
source, and I would likely have started contributing to the IDE then except
they were no more clear then than now.

Let's start with
https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/CONTRIBUTING.md, which
does not include the word "IDE" anywhere in it. Really, the only
information it contains that is remotely relevant to my question is:

"The LiveCode workflow is a typical git workflow, where contributors fork
the livecode/livecode repository, make their changes on a branch, and then
submit a pull request."

>From what I have read, there is no such thing as a "typical git workflow."
Git is designed to be flexible, and there are as many workflows as there
are git users.

And:

"You should base your changes on an appropriate branch: <branch names and
descriptions>"

None of it comes close to describing the steps necessary to set up on my
computer to contribute.

The other document,
https://github.com/livecode/livecode/blob/develop/README.md, describes
LiveCode, and is not even about contributing. Apart from mentioning:

"engine/ — The main LiveCode engine. This directory produces the IDE,
"standalone", "installer" and "server" engines"

it offers nothing useful to figuring out how to set up to contribute.

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.

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.
2. (optional) Install the graphic Git client of your choice (a list of
possibilities is included at the bottom of this documentation).
3. Determine which version of LC you want to contribute to. Note that only
contributions to <version list> are being accepted at present.
4. Clone the repository for the LC version you have selected to your local
drive. Save it to your Applications folder. Do not overwrite your working
copy of LiveCode.
5. You will need to follow these additional steps to make that repository
functional:
...
6. License the copy of LC included in the repository.
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.
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.

</rant>

On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 3:10 PM, Monte Goulding via use-livecode <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

> Just a guessing based on your response that you possibly didn’t read the
> docs that you asked for and Brian responded with ;-)
>
> > On 20 Apr 2018, at 5:43 am, Geoff Canyon via use-livecode <
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> >
> > I have GitKraken; is it as simple as initializing a new repository
> > in /Applications/LiveCode Indy 8.1.8.app/Contents/Tools/
> Toolset/libraries?
>
>
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