Setup of Development Environment for Windows

Required software

Microsoft .Net 3.5

Download and install the two Microsoft .Net dependencies. They allow execution of and development for .NET applications (such as openPETRA).

• Free downloads from Microsoft
  • Microsoft .Net 3.5 SP1 Redistributable
    • http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=AB99342F-5D1A-413D-8319-81DA479AB0D7&displaylang=en
      • Follow the 'Instructions' section on that web page and read the 'Important' section.
    • This is not needed (and will indeed not work!) if you are installing on Windows 7, because the Redistributable is already pre-installed (or even the Microsoft .Net 4 Redistributable, which will also work).
  • Windows Software Development Kit (SDK), .NET 3.5 SP1
    • http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c17ba869-9671-4330-a63e-1fd44e0e2505
    • There is no need to install all the components that are available - many involve huge further downloads! Only ".Net Development Tools" and "Debugging Tools for Windows" are needed for developing openPETRA.

Microsoft recommends to run 'Windows Update' before installing those two dependencies. It might also be a good idea to run 'Windows Update' after installing those two dependencies to check whether any updates or security patches are available.

Note: Both the Redistributable and the SDK are needed! (We only use .Net 2.0 for openPETRA, but the SharpDevelop IDE requires .Net 3.5 SP1 Redistributable and SDK)

SharpDevelop 3.x

SharpDevelop is the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) we use for developing openPETRA.

• We currently use the latest SharpDevelop 3.2 build (Build 5777). (We don't recommend using the Beta version of SharpDevelop 4!)
• Free download: http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/Download/

TortoiseGit

TortoiseGit is the Windows client for the Git Code Versioning System. Git is a distributed code versioning system (as opposed to central versioning systems such as CVS and SVN). We use Git for the maintenance of the openPETRA source code repository.

• Free download: http://code.google.com/p/tortoisegit/
  • This works fine on Windows, although it is still work in progress...
  • Please install "Git on Windows" before installing TortoiseGit (see below)!
  • We recommend to use plink.exe from PuTTY, not OpenSSH. You have that choice in the TortoiseGit installer.

TortoiseGit requires "Git on Windows" http://code.google.com/p/msysgit/; be careful: use the official git installer from that site, eg. Git-1.6.3.2-preview20090608.exe, not the fullinstaller or other packages.

You also might want to have a look at Git Extensions which is also a fully functional git GUI for Windows.

See also some Notes about Git

NAnt

NAnt is our build system. It is used for ongoing compilation, for creation of Builds/Releases of openPETRA, and for the automation of quite a few tasks in the development lifecycle of openPETRA - including auto-generation of source code and Forms.

• see also http://nant.sourceforge.net/release/0.86-beta1/help/introduction/installation.html

• download NAnt nant-0.86-nightly-2009-05-05
  • the beta version does not work for me (0.86-beta1); message: Property 'sdkInstallRoot' has not been set.

• unzip the files to eg. c:\program files\nant
• create file c:\windows\nant.bat with content:

@echo off
"C:\Program Files\NAnt\bin\NAnt.exe" %* -t:net-2.0

See also some Notes about NAnt

Database systems

openPETRA works with a number of Database Management systems.

• Choose one (or more) of the following Database Management systems:
  • SQLite: no installation effort at all is required! See Notes about SQLite
  • PostgreSQL (recommended). See Notes about PostgreSQL
    • get the latest version from http://www.postgresql.org/download/windows. The one click installer works fine for me.
  • MySQL. See Notes about MySQL
    • get the latest Windows version from http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/. It is called MySQL Community Server. The MSI essential package works fine for me.

Optional Software

• For the editing of YAML files (which we use for defining the layout of screens, the main menu entries, and code hierarchy) we use Notepad++, which has syntax highlighting support for YAML files.
  • Download Notepad++
  • Once the software is installed, it needs to be set up once to accept our file extension, '.yaml', in addition to the one is built in, '.yml' for the syntax highlighting to work:
    • Menu 'Settings' -> 'Style Configurator'. Select 'YAML' in the 'Language' list and enter 'yaml' in the 'User ext.' field. Choose 'Save & Close'. (You might need to close and re-open any .yaml file that you already have open to get the syntax highlighting working.)
• The following pieces of software are only required when you want to build releases of OpenPetra:
  • Poedit (for translation, generating the .mo file from the .po file): http://www.poedit.net/download.php
  • Inno Setup 5 for building setup files: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isdl.php

Get the source code

The source code is managed with Git.

Please understand that we will provide write permissions only to the core members of the development team, just to keep the project on one track. We very much need your contributions though, and we will aim to quickly deal with submitted patches and code via the forum. This still has to be worked out how this works best to submit code that way.

You can get the source code in several ways:

• see the Git instructions at Sourceforge
  • that page describes how you can download anonymously from Git
• you can also browse the Git repository online, and you can download a tar.gz snapshot of each version there
• for developers: more detailed instructions how to create the ssh key and where to upload it to Sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/sourceforge/wiki/SSH%20keys

for anonymous access, you can use this URL to clone the repository with TortoiseGit:

git://openpetraorg.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openpetraorg/openpetraorg

for developer access (with write permissions), use this URL to clone the repository with TortoiseGit:

ssh://USERNAME@openpetraorg.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openpetraorg/openpetraorg

For development, I recommend you create a local branch, and switch to it. Then you pull updates from the server ("master") into your local branch, and push your updates up to the server in the master branch. Otherwise you get all sorts of problems with pushing and pulling, so don't commit to master at all. see also Notes about Git

Configuration of Development Environment

The recommended way of installing OpenPetra.org for development is to somewhere map a network drive, using the DOS command subst

For example:

mkdir c:\development
subst u: c:\development

Download the Git repository into u:\openpetraorg (it contains the .git directory, and the OpenPetra.build: U:\openpetraorg\OpenPetra.build, etc)

URL of the git repository:
   anonymous access: git://openpetraorg.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openpetraorg/openpetraorg
   developer access: ssh://USERNAME@openpetraorg.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/openpetraorg/openpetraorg
     make sure that you set your username and email address in your git client

• Make a copy of the file OpenPetra.build-sample-windows.config and call it OpenPetra.build.config

copy OpenPetra.build-sample-windows.config OpenPetra.build.config

Please check your OpenPetra.build.config file and make sure the paths are all adjusted to your system and the version numbers in the paths are correct.

NAnt script

There is a central NAnt script that is able to generate a lot of code and is able to do all automated tasks in the OpenPetra project.

Please see OpenPetra NAnt script for details