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Building Phex from the source code (cvs) |
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Written by Arne Babenhauserheide
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Wednesday, 21 September 2005 |
Contents:
- Intro
- Getting the source-code from cvs.
- Compiling the code.
- Structure of the code.
- Contributing
Intro
This is a guide for all those, who don't want to wait for the new release of Phex but prefer staying on the cutting edge of developement, with all the advantages and drawbacks it includes.
It is also a guide for those who want to try their own tricks with the code or just begin Java-Programming and want to get their fingers dirty on some nicely structured code, where their contributions really count and where they get part of a greater whole (or at least of a program in which their changes form a noticeable part of the whole image). Therefore I'll also include some hints for structuring your code to conform with the structure in Phex.
Getting the source-code from cvs
The Phex sourcecode is hosted at Sourceforge. You can get the code by following their instructions. The anonymous checkout creates a folder named phex with the compile-able sourcecode.
If you use ssh-access, you can update your copy of the code via the command "cvs update" (execute inside the "phex"-folder). More information about cvs-usage can be found at the sourceforge-doc.
To check the progress of Phex developement you can also look at the Real-Time stats.
Now you only need to compile the code to get running.
Compiling the Code
Phex can be compiled using Ant. Simply execute the "ant"-command inside the "build"-folder in the phex-folder. It fetches all build-instructions from the build.xml file and other files in that folder.
This gets us to the next chapter.
Structure of the Code
Here I'll give a few infos for structuring the code and where to find what.
All Phex-specific Java-code can be found in the folder "src". The code written by the Phex-Team is in the folder src/phex.
Libraries are in the folder "thirdparty" and native code for different platforms is in the folder "native". Also as top-level folders you find the installer and docs. The folder "output" is where you find the compiled results and the class-files.
Structure of src/phex
For the most part, you should be able to guess the structure from the folder-names.
- All GUI-elements and only those should reside in the folder "gui".
- In "common" you can find the configuration (Cfg.java) and some more code, which is used at many places in Phex.
More information on this structure should appear in the Phex-Wiki, if you ask for it.
Contributing
We are always happy to greet new programmers, novizes as well as experts, long-term coders as well as fly-by code-casters (who write readable code, of course :) ).
We'd be especially glad to find contributers who take on one of the tasks from our wishlist, or who contribute further Ideas.
Should you be more interested in beta-testing Phex, please have a look into our forums.
Also we search for people, who can help localizing Phex to more languages. We already have German, English and Nederlands.
If you want to help localizing, please have a look at out localization-guide. We have a simple text-file with entries, which can be translated.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 14 October 2005 )
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