Development: Getting started

This is a guide for people who want to start contributing to VisiCut as a developer.

Setting up the environment

Necessary software

• Debian/Ubuntu:
  • needed: sudo apt-get install netbeans git
  • optional: sudo apt-get install ant fakeroot checkinstall nsis inkscape
• Windows:
  • Java SE Development Kit 8: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk8-downloads-2133151.html
  • NetBeans (Java SE): http://netbeans.org/downloads/
  • Git: https://code.google.com/p/msysgit/downloads/list?q=full+installer+official+git
  • if you want to build the .exe installer, you also need NSIS http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Download
• OS X: Get NetBeans (Java SE) here: http://netbeans.org/downloads/ and Git here: http://git-scm.com/downloads.

If you want to build the installer, Debian/Ubuntu is recommended because you can generate the packages for all other operating systems from there.

If you want to change the GUI, some parts are created with an old UI-Editor-Version of NetBeans, which means that you have to use NetBeans <= 7.0.1 (http://netbeans.org/downloads/7.0.1/index.html) to change those. However we are continuing to change those to newer Version, so first try to open it with a more recent version. If you just change code, which is no UI-Form, you do not need the old version.

Initial setup

• Open up a terminal (git bash on windows)
• cd to a folder, where you want to have the VisiCut sources e.g.:

cd Desktop

• clone the VisiCut repository including the LibLaserCut repository

git clone --recursive https://github.com/t-oster/VisiCut.git

• If you get an error message that --recursive is unsupported (old version of Mac OSX e.g.), use:

git clone https://github.com/t-oster/VisiCut.git
cd VisiCut
git submodule init
git submodule update

• Open up NetBeans
• Open the LibLaserCut project, then the VisiCut project:
• File->Open Project
• select the path where you cloned the VisiCut repository, expand it and select the subfolder "lib/LibLaserCut"
• Hit 'Clean and Build'
• File->Open Project
• now select the VisiCut path

Congratulations. You should now have the latest Visicut version.

If you have this setup and want to start developing, always update to the latest develop-version first:

Updating to the latest version

• In NetBeans, right-click on the LibLaserCut-project and select Git->Remote->Pull from Upstream
• If there is no Pull from upstream, use Pull... and use this URL: 'https://github.com/t-oster/LibLaserCut.git'. Select the branch "develop"
• Do the same with the VisiCut project (but use 'https://github.com/t-oster/VisiCut.git' instead).

If you want to develop and publish a fix or a feature, read submit a fix or feature

Distribution

To create distribute files for the different platforms run distribute.sh

cd distribute; ./distribute.sh

(answer "n" for all packages you don't need like windows etc.)

To view compile errors you need to run make manually, in the main folder.