Re: Helping AfterStep devellopment

Ethan (allanon@crystaltokyo.com)
Sun, 24 Jan 1999 14:34:14 -0800 (PST)



On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Jeroen Asselman wrote:

> We (me and another person I know) would like to help with AfterStep 
> (actually making a start into rewriting into C++). However, we have got 
> a few problems. Although we do have experience with C(++) we are not 
> familiar with programming for the X interface. Could you perhaps send 
> an URL or Titles of a Programmers book, we could take a look at?

I'd suggest the documentation that comes with X as a guide, both the 
PostScript docs and man pages.  The PostScript can be found here, in 
case you don't have it:

ftp://ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/3.3.3/source/X333src-3.tgz

Between the man pages, header files, AfterStep code, the PostScript docs, 
and a quick-reference book - well, that's as much as I know about X. :)

(The book is "The X Window System in a Nutshell", O'Reilly and Associates, 
1992.  It was out of print last I heard, though.)

> Second, how de we become devellopers? Anything in special to read first?

To become developers, all you have to do is contribute. :)  There are a 
couple of TODO lists that comes with AfterStep, which are a good place to 
start, if you want to contribute to the existing code base.

There's some developer's info in doc/code.

Also, be sure you are working with the latest 1.7.x code.  There are lots 
of changes (improvements, hopefully :) in 1.7, and 1.6 is bugfixes-only.

Sasha Vasko has been working on designing some C++ classes for AfterStep, 
but he's still gone on vacation - he'll be back in a week.  His address 
is in the CC line for this email.

Lastly, welcome, and have fun!  It's always good to have more people 
working on AfterStep.

----
Ethan Fischer
allanon@crystaltokyo.com
http://members.xoom.com/allanon1