Introduction

This document is written for the programmers who wish to contribute to eKalappai development

Development Setup

The following are the requirements to build eKalappai in your machine.

• A computer with a windows operating system. Preferably Windows XP and above. We have compiled successfully on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows Server 2003.

• Microsoft VC++ express edition 2008.

Install and ensure that "VCexpress.exe" is in system path. Default location of VCexpress is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE" (depends on install path). http://www.microsoft.com/express/downloads/#Visual_Studio_2008_Express_Downloads

• Qt SDK for Windows. Get from http://get.qt.nokia.com/qtsdk/qt-sdk-win-opensource-2010.02.1.exe

Install and ensure that "qmake.exe" is in system path. Default location of "qmake.exe" is "C:\Qt\2010.02.1\qt\bin". Ensure that "mingw32-make.exe" is in system path. Default location of "mingw32-make.exe" is "C:\Qt\2010.02.1\mingw\bin".

• NSIS.

Install and ensure that "makensis.exe" is in system path. Default location of "makensis.exe" is "C:\Program Files\NSIS". http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Download

NOTE: To ensure the exe's mentioned above is in system path add

    C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE 
    C:\Qt\2010.02.1\qt\bin
    C:\Qt\2010.02.1\mingw\bin
    C:\Program Files\NSIS 

to system "Path" variable using the instructions as below.

My Computer (right click) -> Properties -> Advanced -> Environmental Variables -> System Variables, select Path and Edit. Add all the four path mentioned above. Path values depend on the install location on your build machine.

• SVN client tool

Install any SVN client tool to checkout source code. We would recommend smartsvn for beginners. This can be downloaded free from the following URL:

http://www.syntevo.com/smartsvn/index.html

Build Setup

To set up you machine for automated build, the following steps need to be followed AFTER completing all the Development Setup steps given above.

• ANT 1.8.0

Download apache-ant-1.8.0-bin.zip and unzip apache-ant-1.8.0-bin.zip to any location. Add ANT_HOME=<Your ant unzip location> to system variable. Add %ANT_HOME%/bin to system "path" variable. http://archive.apache.org/dist/ant/binaries/apache-ant-1.8.0-bin.zip

• JAVA 6 SDK.

Download JAVA 6 SDK and Install to build machine, make sure "java" is in system path. Installation of JAVA SDK will by default ensure "java" in system path. To test java in system path from cmd prompt say, >> "java -version". Command will return java version installed. http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

From "build" directory, issue command as below.

   Command below will build the source code and create installer executable under ./installer directory.
   > ant 

   Command below will build source code only.
   > ant build

   Command below will clean all the generated artifacts including installer.
   > ant clean

Reference

List of Virtual Key Codes that will be used for coding: http://www.kbdedit.com/manual/low_level_vk_list.html