Login | Register
My pages Projects Community openCollabNet
Home News Screenshots Installation Roadmap Building Hacking Issues

Building SCPlugin

These instructions describe how to build SCPlugin from source, enabling you to perform Subversion operations from the Mac OS X Finder, and to modify and improve the product itself.

Prerequisites

Mac OS X 10.4.X.

The product runs on 10.3.9 or later, but all developers are currently building on 10.4.

Xcode 2.4.1

Somewhat earlier versions of Xcode may also work, but you definitely need at least version 2.2. The latest Xcode is available for free download from the Apple Developer Connection.

Be sure to include the Mac OS X 10.3.9 SDK and the Mac OS X 10.4 (Universal) SDK Cross-Development packages (available under the "Custom" button in the Xcode installer).

Subversion

You'll need Subversion to check out SCPlugin. One way to get it would be to install the latest SCPlugin release (see Installation).

Procedure

Set up

You will need to place a symbolic link at /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/Users to /Users: 
ln -s /Users /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk

Build the plugin

  1. Check out http://scplugin.tigris.org/svn/scplugin/trunk
  2. In a Terminal window, cd to svn-mac-build
  3. Type "make"
  4. In a Finder window, double-click SCPlugin.xcodeproj
  5. Build "All"

Test the plugin

  1. Open /Library/Contextual Menu Items (there's a handy link to it in the top of the SCPlugin tree).
  2. Trash any existing SCFinderPlugin.plugin
  3. Log out and back in, or:
    • cmd-opt-esc and "Relaunch" Finder
    • use Activity Monitor to kill any running SCPluginUIDaemon process
  4. Put the scplugin folder into "Icon" view, if it's not already.
  5. Ctrl-click any file or folder in scplugin/. You should see a "Subversion" sub-menu.
  6. Pick "Refresh Icons" from the submenu. The files should be properly badged (if they were not already).

Build the installer

  1. double-click support/SCPlugin.pmproj
  2. Project: Build. This should create SCPlugin.pkg, in the support folder.

Rules of the road

We discuss all changes in the dev@scplugin mail list. Feel free to try things out on your own, but before you start any serious work that you hope will make it into the product, please look over the list archives to see if we've discussed the feature before, and post a new message to the list explaining what you plan to do. Follow that discussion! There are a lot of interested people on that list, they may have insights that will save you a lot of trouble.

If you're new to the project, you won't have the rights necessary to commit your changes. Don't let that stop you: go right ahead and develop your work. When you're done, submit a patch to the dev@ list. Give it a subject like: 

Subject: [PATCH] Move OK button one pixel south
or 
Subject: [PATCH] Implement telepathic pre-commit bug repair
The other developers will review your changes, help you spot anything you might have missed, and then one of the committers will actually apply the patch to the repository for you.

Want to become a committer yourself? We'd love to have you! Like most open-source projects, we're a meritocracy: the project is led by those who've shown, through their past work, that they can contribute useful and trustworthy code to the project. In order to show that, you need to participate usefully in the dev@ discussions, help other devs out by trying their changes out and commenting, and provide some quality work through the [PATCH] mechanism. If you do that, the committers will notice and award you committer status. Don't be embarassed to ask whether you've "earned your spurs," but remember that becoming a committer may take a while.

Welcome!

Whatever your status and interests, welcome to the community!
$Id: building.html 587 2008-02-14 01:26:11Z jackrepenning $