Developing BWAPI

While we have made a lot of progress on BWAPI, there is still plenty of things which need to be properly tested and improved. If you are interested in developing the BWAPI framework, please don't hesitate to contact us.

We are primarily using Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition. You can download Visual Studio 2008 Express Edition from Microsoft for free and use it for an unlimited time.

You don't need to know how to code to get involved!

Aside from writing code, participation can include any of the following:

• Accumulating valuable knowledge about the Starcraft game engine
• Providing feedback about commits, bugs, and anything else by testing the HEAD revision.
• Organizing the code, making it easier to read, and adding comments.
• Fixing some small bugs or including small patches/fixes to the code.
• Improving, expanding, and/or clarifying the user documentation (wiki).
• Manage issues, recruit project members, and spread the word.

How to Start Working on BWAPI

Note: Only perform steps 3 and 4 if you want to use Chaos Launcher as a loader. BWAPI will work with any other basic hack loader as well as MPQDraft.

1. Obtain an SVN Program. Google has its own instructions for getting an SVN program, but we use TortoiseSVN, which can be found here: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/
2. Follow the instructions on the Source tab for retrieving the source code.
3. Download ChaosLauncher
4. (Optional) Create a Windows Environment variable called ChaosDir with a value pointing to the Chaos Launcher directory. For instructions on how to create a windows environment variable, read this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310519
5. Move the contents of "starcraft-folder" and "chaos-launcher-folder" from the source code to your Starcraft and Chaos Launcher Directories.
6. If you are a project member you can submit your code modifications. Following the coding standard and make sure BWAPI still compiles and runs before you submit your changes.

Useful Tools for finding new offsets/hooks

• Ollydbg
• IDA Pro
• ArtMoney

How To Create a New Release of BWAPI

Release Steps

1. Check out BWAPI
2. Update the ChangeLog file with info from the Changes page.
3. Update the README file so it has the name of the new release at the top of the file.
4. Compile BWAPI as Release mode and Debug mode.
5. Check out and compile BWTA using the latest BWAPI header files as Release mode and Debug mode.
6. Copy BWTA libs and header files into Release_Binary/libs/ and Release_Binary/include/
7. Export the Release_Binary SVN folder to some other folder like BWAPI_Beta_X.Y.Z to remove the .svn folders.
8. Compress the folder to zip archive.
9. Upload to the Downloads page and mark as Featured.
10. Update Project Home page with exciting new information.
11. Tell everyone!

Post-Release Steps

1. Copy the lastest release binary to Release_Binary/Starcraft/bwapi-data/revisions.
2. Rename the binary to the revision number.
3. Update info.txt with the new revision -> version information.
4. Commit all the changes made in any of the Release and Post-Release steps.