====== Gala Contribute ====== ====== Testing the latest build ====== Get daily builds on Launchpad for Ubuntu 12.04 and later. https://launchpad.net/~elementary-os/+archive/daily ====== Join IRC chat rooms ====== Join #elementary-dev on Freenode (irc.freenode.net). ====== Contribute without touching code ====== Go through problem reports and check unconfirmed bugs or those lacking information and mark any duplicates you spot. http://bugs.launchpad.net/gala Help getting Gala translated in your language! https://translations.launchpad.net/gala Answer questions. https://answers.launchpad.net/gala ====== Check out the sources ====== bzr branch lp:gala The development trunk (master, tip) is the latest iteration of the next release. Browse it online and look for other branches at: http://code.launchpad.net/gala ====== Build the code ====== Prepare the source and compile: ./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr make Run Gala: ./src/gala --replace For more detailed instructions, please see the INSTALL file. ===== Debugging Code ====== Debugging a window manager is not as easy as debugging any window application. When the window manager processes crashes, it is stopped by gdb, so all your windows will get stuck. Instead, run gdb from a different tty by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F6 for example and executing gdb gala # once inside gdb run -d :0 --replace Now, you can switch back to your X session, which will probably be on tty7, which would be Ctrl+Alt+F7. You can then get program to crash as you usually would and switch back to tty6 as above and you have full access to all gdb features like "bt" for getting a backtrace. See the end of the "If something goes wrong" section if you have troubles starting gala a second time from gdb. ===== If something goes wrong ===== If gala crashes, you'll usually find yourself in a pretty bad position, as you can't give focus to a window anymore by clicking on it, so you can't enter text either. To get things back running, switch to tty6 by pressing ctrl+alt+f6 and execute gala -d :0 --replace which will start gala on display :0, which typically is the display you'll be running. The "--replace" is most probably not required when gala crashed. You might experience some weirdnesses if you you try to restart gala again from a tty. The first launch will usually be somehow ignored. If that's the case, just hit ctrl+c, and start it again. Now it should be running just fine. ===== Gala is a mutter plugin? ===== Mutter works with plugins, although they are not implemented in the way you would maybe expect. In fact, you should better only load a single plugin at a time. This plugin will then be queried by mutter for animating windows or workspaces and defining a few other things. The plugin also has the oppurtinity to add arbitrary ClutterActors to the stage or registring handlers for shortcuts. ===== Adding a new shell component ==== Shell components are typically placed in the src/Widgets/ folder. They usually derive from ClutterActor, so they can be added to the stage the wm runs in directly. Once you defined your actor, you can go to src/Plugins.vala and add a new instance of it to the stage in the Plugin's start() method. You can register shortcuts for invoking your view in that function as well. To get input events on your actor, you'll have to call plugin.begin_modal(), which puts the stage in a mode where only the custom actors receive events and the windows are unaccessible. When your view is closed, call plugin.end_modal() to make the windows accessible again. A last option to have elements like a panel receive clicks, even when not being in modal mode, is to have a look at the Utils.set_input_region() method. Currently, you'll have to hack your area into it manually, it is planned to have automatic areas for actors that request it as well later on as we need it. ====== Important: Keep fixes for different bugs in different branches ====== Branches that contain patches to fix more than one bug will be rejected, and you will be asked to supply a separate branch for every bug fix. However, this doesn't apply to patches that are indivisible by nature, and that fix multiple bugs. The reasons to work in this way are the following: If one of the bugs targeted by your branch is correctly fixed, but one of the other bugs is incorrectly fixed or needs corrections, the branch won't be accepted until everything looks ok for all bugs. This causes an unnecessary delay for the bugs that where fixed correctly. Suppose your branch was accepted for merging in the main one. Later, it is discovered that your branch introduces faulty behavior. The standard course of action for these situations is to revert the merge that introduced that faulty behavior. This will cause that all of your fixes are reverted (even the ones that didn't cause problems) because there was no way of discriminating between them. If a separate branch for each bug fixed existed, only the offending one would have been reverted, and not all of them. Be sure to understand this, and avoid a headache later! ====== Coding style ====== Gala's source code in general follows the K&R "One True Brace Style" (1TBS), with a caveat: spaces are inserted before opening parenthesis. For indenting the source code only tabs are used! Tabs should be 4 spaces wide for code to look good. Consider the following snippet as an example: int test_check () { if (x < 0) { message ("Negative"); negative (x); } else { message ("Non-negative"); nonnegative (x); } return 0; } Of course the best example is the current source code itself. You can also have a look at this doc for some parts: http://elementaryos.org/docs/code/code-style Keep in mind that neither the indentation rules or curly bracket positions mentioned there apply for Gala. ====== Committing code ====== Make a branch which will contain your changes for fixing bug 123456: bzr branch lp:gala fix-123456 Tell Bazaar your name if you haven't yet: bzr whoami "Real Name " See what you did so far: bzr diff bzr diff | less Get an overview of changed and new files: bzr status Add new files, move/ rename or delete: bzr add FILENAME bzr mv OLDFILENAME NEWFILENAME bzr rm FILENAME Note: 'bzr add' should be used only when new source or data files are added to Gala's source directory. After making your changes, you need to commit your work as a new revision. bzr commit Bazaar will open the default text editor (in most systems, nano) where you will write the commit message, save the document, and close it. Bazaar will use the commit message as commentary for the new revision, so it should be a concise summary of what you did. To change Bazaar's text editor, add the following line to Bazaar's configuration file (usually located at ~/.bazaar/bazaar.conf): editor = your_text_editor_here For example: editor = gedit Commit your changes in small increments. It is better to keep different changes in different commits. If a commit fixes a reported bug in Launchpad, it is useful to make a reference to that bug report when committing: bzr commit --fixes lp:123456 Did you make changes to more than one file, but don't want to commit the changes of all of them? You can specify which files you want to commit: bzr commit file1 file2 To see the last 5 revisions in the current branch: bzr log -l5 bzr log -l5 -p | less In the case you committed something wrong or want to ammend it: bzr uncommit If you want to revert all the changes made after the last revision: bzr revert Remember to keep your branch updated: bzr pull As a general rule of thumb, 'bzr help COMMAND' gives you an explanation of any command and 'bzr help commands' lists all available commands. ====== Push proposed changes ====== If you haven't yet, https://launchpad.net/~/+editsshkeys check that Launchpad has your SSH key - you can create an SSH key with Passwords and Keys aka Seahorse or 'ssh-keygen -t rsa' - and use 'bzr launchpad-login' to make youself known to bzr locally. If you checked out trunk, and commited your patch(es), just push it under your username in Launchpad and you can propose it for merging into trunk. This will automatically request a review from other developers who can then comment on it and provide feedback. bzr push lp:~USERNAME/gala/fix-123456 bzr lp-open The last command will open a summary of the current branch in your web browser. There, you will be able to propose it for merging into trunk. Your branch will be reviewed by another developer. At this stage, you may be notified that changes need to be made to your branch, so keep an eye on your email inbox! After the branch is approved by the reviewer, it will get merged into the main project's source code. What happens to all the branches? Leave the branches alone, approved branches are cleared automatically by Launchpad. For larger feature branches, use the team in Launchpad to allow other developers to work on the code with you. What if I want to help out on an existing merge request that I can't push to? bzr branch lp:~OTHERPERSON/gala/fix-123456 cd fix-123456 # make commits bzr push lp:~USERNAME/gala/fix-123456 bzr lp-open And in the Launchpad web overview of your branch, propose your branch for merging into lp:~OTHERPERSON/gala/fix-123456 Updating a branch that may be out of sync with trunk: bzr pull bzr: ERROR: These branches have diverged bzr merge lp:gala # Hand-edit conflicting changes bzr resolve FILENAME # If any conflicts remain continue fixing bzr commit -m 'Merge changes from lp:gala' Save a little bandwidth, branch from an existing local copy that you keep around: bzr branch lp:gala gala bzr branch gala/ gala-fix-123456 cd gala-fix-123456 bzr pull lp:gala ====== License ====== This document and the Gala project are licensed under the GPL Version 3.