Development:Main
Outlined below is information on assisting with the development of the Spring source itself.
- NOTE: For information about developing a mod (units, maps, etc.) see the Mod Development page.
Below you can find information on how to work with the Spring source in the current mainline (Windows platform) if you like to work on another platform (Linux & Mac) please look at the bottem of this page under "Multiplatform development"
Starting Development
To start development, you'll need
- The latest version of the source
- A good code manipulation program
- Compiling your modified source
Source Code Documentation
A good place to start is the source code documentation, which can be found here: doxygen
An explanation on how the code is executed ingame can be found in the Spring Engine Code page.
Obtaining the Source
One option is to manually download it along with the latest released version of the game. However, for serious developers, a better way would be to download the source straight from the CVS. The CVS is updated nightly, and is considered "bleeding edge" because it may or may not work properly. However, the CVS will always have the most up-to-date version of the source code. Look at this CVS tutorial for instructions on how to get the source code from the CVS, or download the nightly cvs tarball: http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cvstarballs/springrts-cvsroot.tar.bz2
Learning C++
You will need to know C++ to modify or understand Spring's source code. If you're interested in learning C++, see Learning_C++
However please note that badly designed code (code created by a C++ novice for example), will even if working not be included in the spring code. Spring is a large project, and therefore it is necessary to stay away from hackjobs and create general solutions to problems.
Modifying and Compiling the Source
See Development_IDEs
Development Suggestions
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 at the list of example projects. You can also check the list of whois doing what 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.
How to get your code included
If you create something that you think should be included in the official source tree, you can send an email to the development mailing list shown at Linux page. Sending your code in the form of a patch (also known as a .diff file), will make the chances of including it in the main code. It's also considered standard practice to post one's modifications in the development forum and get feedback.
Multiplatform development
Current development is done on the portable code only, located at Berlios All future releases will be based on this code. The current spring code is being developed on Windows and linux. A mac port, as well as other unixes, is very possible, but currently no developers are working on this. Use the mailing list listed on the Linux page to reach all developers (windows and linux). However if you have a feature request or bug report, the mantis bugtracker is probably a better way.
See Glossary
