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GTK+ FAQ: Development of GTK+ Next Previous Contents

3. Development of GTK+

3.1 Whats this CVS thing that everyone keeps talking about, and how do I access it?

CVS is the Concurent Version System and is a very popular means of version control for software projects. It is designed to allow multiple authors to be able to simultanously operate on the same source tree. This source tree is centrally maintained, but each developer has a local mirror of this repository that they make there changes to.

The GTK+ developers use a CVS repository to store the master copy of the current development version of GTK+. As such, people wishing to contribute patches to GTK+ should generate them against the CVS version. Normal people should use the packaged releases.

The CVS toolset is available as RPM packages from the usual RedHat sites. The latest version is available at http://download.cyclic.com/pub/

Anyone can download the latest CVS version of GTK+ by using anonymous access using the following steps:

  • In a bourne shell descendant (e.g. bash) type:
    CVSROOT=':pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.gnome.org:/cvs/gnome'
    export CVSROOT
    
  • Next, the first time the source tree is checked out, a cvs login is needed.
    cvs login
    
    This will ask you for a password. There is no password for cvs.gimp.org, so just enter a carriage return.
  • To get the tree and place it in a subdir of your current working directory, issue the command:
    cvs -z3 get gtk+
    
    Note that with the GTK+ 1.1 tree, glib has been moved to a separate CVS module, so if you don't have glib installed you will need to get that as well:
    cvs -z3 get glib
    

3.2 How can I contribute to GTK+?

It's simple. If something doesn't work like you think it should in a program, check the documentation to make sure you're not missing something. If it is a true bug or missing feature, track it down in the GTK+ source, change it, and then generate a patch in the form of a 'context diff'. This can be done using a command such as diff -ru <oldfile> <newfile>. Then upload the patchfile to:

ftp://ftp.gtk.org/incoming
along with a README file. Make sure you follow the naming conventions or your patch will just be deleted! The filenames should be of this form:
gtk-<username>-<date yymmdd-n>.patch.gz
gtk-<username>-<date yymmdd-n>.patch.README
The "n" in the date indicates a unique number (starting from 0) of patches you uploaded that day. It should be 0, unless you upload more than one patch in the same day.

Example:

gtk-gale-982701-0.patch.gz
gtk-gale-982701-0.patch.README
Once you upload anything, send the README to ftp-admin@gtk.org

3.3 How do I know if my patch got applied, and if not, why not?

Uploaded patches will be moved to ftp://ftp.gtk.org/pub/gtk/patches where one of the GTK+ development team will pick them up. If applied, they will be moved to /pub/gtk/patches/old.

Patches that aren't applied, for whatever reason, are moved to /pub/gtk/patches/unapplied or /pub/gtk/patches/outdated. At this point you can ask on the gtk-list mailing list why your patch wasn't applied. There are many possible reasons why patches may not be applied, ranging from it doesn't apply cleanly, to it isn't right. Don't be put off if your patch didn't make it first time round.

3.4 What is the policy on incorporating new widgets into the library?

This is up to the authors, so you will have to ask them once you are done with your widget. As a general guideline, widgets that are generally useful, work, and are not a disgrace to the widget set will gladly be included.

3.5 Is anyone working on bindings for languages other than C?

The GTK+ home page ( http://www.gtk.org/) presents a list of GTK+ bindings.


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