Development:Getting Started

Development < Getting Started

Starting Spring Development

NOTE: Outlined below is information on assisting with the development of the Spring source itself. For information about developing a mod (units, widgets, maps, etc.) see the Mod_and_Unit_development page.

Even if you are developing a mod, it is highly recommended that you get the engine source. Engine source + full text search: DO IT.

Overview

To start development, you will need:

1. To read the Coding_Standards
2. The latest version of the source
3. A good code manipulation program: Development_IDEs
4. Compiling your modified source (see instructions above)

Learning C++

You will need to know C++ to modify or understand Spring's source code. If you are interested in learning C++, see Learning_CPP

However please note that badly designed code (code created by a C++ novice for example), even if working will likely not be included in the spring code. Spring is a large project, and therefore it is necessary to stay away from hack jobs and create general solutions to problems.

Source Code Documentation

The doxygen documentation can provide an overview about the source, directory structure and its dependencies. Unfortunately, there is no server running it, so you need to make them on your own, to do this, install doxygen and run "doxygen" in spring source directory (will take some time).

An explanation on how the code is executed in game can be found in the Spring Engine Code page.

Development Guidelines

Before starting to make modifications to the source, take a look at the development guidelines which outlines some important things to think about. To find something interesting to work on, look for todos in the forum. You can also check in the forums to see what others are doing. If you do edit the code, please add Doxygen style comments to the code, which will then enhance the source code documentation.

Keep track what others do

If you develop with others, you need to know what they do. You can browse the source at our github-page, and there is a commit newsfeed.

Buildbot and Stacktrace translator

A buildbot server is here available to automatically compile Spring, the default AIs and make the installer. It can also translate stacktraces directly from uploaded infolog.txt files.

How to get your code included

If you create something that you think should be included in the official source tree: make a fork on github.com of spring (master branch) and ask in the development forum to get it included / feedback.

When developing, use the master branch!

Spring Engine TODO list

If you want to code something, look into the New Developers Forum for TODOs. There is also a feature request forum, which may give you some ideas. Don't be overwhelmed by the sheer number of (silly) requests though!

Alternatively, you may just search the code for the famous comment tags, for example on linux: <syntaxhighlight lang="bash">grep -r "TODO" rts </syntaxhighlight>

Development links

• View the latest source in a web browser
• Doxygen documentation
• Bug Tracking System
• buildbot
• buildbot builds
• Unitsync API docs
• Developer Meetings
• Stacktrace Translator (translates stacktraces from official win32 builds)
• project proposals for new developers
• Development libraries for Visual Studio 2005
• SourceForge project page
• TASServer, TASClient and Web site Subversion repository