Hi. I am interested in contributing to the SCP, specifically, getting wxFRED working with full functionality on Linux systems. I am a mid-range C/C++ programmer, but quite honestly, I have never used wxWidgets and I'm unfamiliar with how to do commits with svn.
Thats fine, the FSO code base it self is a bit different from anything else any of the coders have ever encountered (thats C/C++ for you
). wxWidgets has
nice manuals on their website,
SVN has this handbook (which also explains what the point of version control is if you don't already know).
I am also not too familiar with the FRED code at this time, but I am confident in my abilities to familiarize myself and make changes.
FRED itself is fairly straight forward to work with, if a bit obtuse because it is a event based GUI. If you have the ability to compile FRED it is actually quite easy to at least understand the premise. As always, the hard part is in the details, especially code.lib (which is the core of the engine that is shared between FRED and FSO).
What is involved in joining the project?
Basically, submitting a patch and then following (or refuting) any suggestions that the coders come up with.
If I don't deliver right away, am I booted?
No, essentaily the only reason that you would be booted is either you were being a prima don(na) or causing damage to the code base, our reputation, or these forums themselves.
I really don't have all the time now to fully immerse myself, but I love the game and would like to see the vision realized of being able to use all the tools on Linux. Is it possible to contribute code without being an "official member" of the project?
You can certainly submit patches on the forums or in mantis, that we will review (and likely critique) and then one of us with commit access (probably one that can also verify that what you submitted works correctly) will then commit it to SVN.
I would suggest starting small.
Thanks!
No problem, if you have questions, you can ask here in SCP forum or find talk to us live on IRC, channel #scp, server: irc.esper.net (if you don't know what that means,
click here to use mibbit).
