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 will 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 in game can be found in the Spring Engine Code page.
Obtaining the Source
Update: the latest SVN is at: https://taspring.clan-sy.com/svn/spring
Another 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 subversion (SVN) repository. This will also allow you to make a patch out of the changes you make to the code, and send it to one of the developers with SVN access.
windows SVN clients : Subversion (Win32-Console), SmartSVN (Java) and TortoiseSVN (MSI).
assuming that you are using the Subversion svn client you can download the latest SVN source with
svn.exe checkout https://taspring.clan-sy.com/svn/spring/trunk
it will create a trunk subdirectory in the directory from where you ran it, which will contain the source code root directory which will be later referred to as /taspring
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.
Modifying and Compiling the Source
The build environment on Windows will change for the next release:
- 0.73b1 release was built using msvc 2003
- The next release (and hence the SVN version) is built using SCONS/mingw
If you will be developing on Windows you are recommended to use SCONS/mingw, using the SVN version.
See Development_IDEs. You have either to use the SCons build system that is multi platform, or use the vcproj for building spring in Visual Studio 2003 or Visual Studio 2005. A list of required libraries as well as pre-built packages of these follows.
- Boost C++ library
- OpenAL Audio library
- GLEW (OpenGL extension loading)
- zlib + minizip
- SDL
- DevIL (Image loading)
- Freetype font rendering
- DirectX SDK (Windows, Visual Studio C++ only)
- PlatformSDK (Windows, Visual Studio C++ Only)
- Dev-Cpp installer / [MinGW] Though I would not advise mingw because you have to set it up your self, and this is harder than it sounds. Note that Code:Blocks mingw setup is not sufficient.
Grab and install the above programs.
Development System Setup
- Make sure C:\Python24 and C:\Dev-Cpp\bin are in your PATH environment variable.
- Make sure a MINGDIR environment variable with value C:\Dev-Cpp exists. (Change paths where appropriate.)
- Set environment variables by: Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Environment variables (for Windows XP).
- Checkout the TA Spring SVN repository into your working area.
- You will also need the MinGW/DevCPP libs extracted to your source directory obtained from SVN. ie your-working-path/source/trunk/mingwlibs. Therefore mingwlibs is at the same directory level as AI, lua and the omni directories.
Running SCONS Configure
- Open a console (Start -> Run -> cmd.exe -> Run)
- cd /where you checked it out in the previous step, if you use checked it out on a different drive make sure to change drives with DriveLetter:<enter> first
- type "scons configure"<enter>
Gotchas:
- if you get an error message starting with "EOFError: : env = Environement...", try deleting the file build/scons_signatures.dblite
- if you get an error message stating "ImportError: No module named win32file:", you have probably not installed the python-win32-extensions.
Compiling Spring
Open a console (Start -> Run -> cmd.exe -> Run), cd /where you checked it out in the previous step, if you use checked it out on a different drive make sure to change drives with DriveLetter:<enter> first then type scons configure<enter>, followed by scons<enter>. Refer to scons --help for options that can be passed to scons configure. Wait, this will take a while. Copy over data files and stuff from official spring to the game dir (where spring.exe is created). Copy missing DLLs from mingwlibs/dll, Start developing.
If you are using Linux, refer to the SetupGuide to build Spring and get it running.
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 current and future releases will be based on this code. The current spring code is being developed on Windows and linux. A mac port is being worked on, as well as other unixes. 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. Development information about the portable code can be found here: MultiplatformSpring
Spring Engine TODO list
There is a TODO list for developers who want to contribute to the engine itself: SpringEngineTODO
See Glossary
