Welcome to the Power*Architect development community! This document is your starting point for getting involved in contributing to the Architect's day-to-day development, and for how to have your say in the Architect's future direction.

We've organized the sections in relative order of importance, so the most important items should be near the top. Don't be intimidated by the length of this document--you don't have to do everything listed here all at once!

Subscribe To the Power*Architect Mailing Lists

There are three mailing lists associated with the Power*Architect. All are are hosted on Google Groups. We strongly recommend that you subscribe to all three if you are interested in getting involved in Architect development.

Development discussion

First, the architect-developers mailing list. This list is for discussion about specific design decisions, the future direction of the Architect, giving comments and suggestions, or any other concerns that you may have while making modifications. For end-user support, your best bet is the Architect web forum, which is a separate venue. We'll cover that later in this document.

You can subscribe to the architect-developers mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/architect-developers.

Major Announcements

Next, architect-announce is a read-only list that we use to announce major news about the Power*Architect project. We recommend all developers and end users subscribe to this list so they don't miss any important news about the Architect. Expect less than one message per week from this list.

You can subscribe to the architect-announce mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/architect-announce.

Commit log

Finally, architect-commits is a read-only list for commits to Power*Architect. If you subscribe to this list, you'll be able to stay current on all the latest changes to the Architect code base. This list gets an automatic email every time someone commits a change to the Power*Architect repository. Each email includes the commit comment (a short summary of the change written by the developer who committed it), and a list of the modifications--including line-by-line diffs for changes to textual files.

You can subscribe to the architect-commits mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/architect-commits.

Get the Source Code

If you are using Eclipse

To check out the Power*Architect source into an Eclipse project:

1. If you don't yet have the Subversion feature available on your version of Eclipse, get Subclipse
2. Start Eclipse and create a new project (File -> New -> Project...)
3. Under the SVN folder, select Checkout Projects from SVN. If you don't see the SVN folder, go back to step 1. ;)
4. Create a new repository location to check out the SQL Power Library from. Power*Architect requires this project to build. The URL for the new repository is http://sqlpower-library.googlecode.com/svn/
5. To check out all of the latest source files for the SQL Power Library, select the trunk directory, then press next
6. Ensure that the "Check out as a project in the workspace" and "Head Revision" options are selected (they are the defaults), then click Finish.
7. Ensure the Eclipse project is set to compile with Java 5 language level, and against the JDK 5 libraries. Trying to compile against JDK 6 or newer will cause compile errors in the JDBC Wrappers.
8. Repeat steps 2-6 for Power*Architect, except use the following repository URL at step 4: http://power-architect.googlecode.com/svn/

Other Development Environments

Currently, everyone on the Architect team has chosen to use Eclipse. If you have a different favourite Java IDE, we'd be happy to post your instructions for checking out the Architect code here. Just post to the architect-developers list!

Command-line svn

If you just want to check out the source into a local directory or your development environment does not integrate with Subversion, use the command line svn tool:

svn checkout http://power-architect.googlecode.com/svn/trunk power-architect

Support Web Forum

For end-user support, visit the SQL Power forums at http://www.sqlpower.ca/forum/. You've probably already noticed that we want to encourage all Architect users to hang out on the forum so they can ask questions, get answers, trade tips and advice, and so on.

Nuts and Bolts

Ok, so you've joined the list, you've checked out the code, and you're ready to get your hands dirty with some real development. In order for us to incorporate your changes with the least amount of hassle, here's the stuff you'll want to know about:

• Our JavaFormattingConventions
• Our JavaPractices

How To Use The Build File

The following section assumes that Eclipse is being used for development.

To build Power*Architect from the source files Apache Ant version 1.7 or higher is required. Ant 1.7 should be included with Eclipse 3.3 (Europa). If you are using an older version of Eclipse, see the following sub-section on how to install Apache Ant version 1.7 for Eclipse. Once Ant 1.7 is installed Power*Architect can be run by using the build.xml file. To run Power*Architect open the build.xml file and select the target named run in the outline. Right click on the run target and select Ant Build from the Run As menu option. Another target of interest is the alltest target. This target will run the different test suites available with Power*Architect. The alltest target can be run by right clicking on the alltest target and selecting the Ant Build from the Run As menu option.

How To Install Apache Ant For Eclipse (3.2 and older)

Apache Ant is available at http://ant.apache.org/bindownload.cgi. To install Ant 1.7 into Eclipse first unzip and install Ant to your local machine. Then under Eclipse's user preferences select the Ant runtime item in the list of preferences on the left. Click on the Ant Home button and select the folder that you installed Ant 1.7 into. Then click ok and Eclipse will use the new Ant.

Bugzilla Database

We recently made our Bugzilla database for Power*Architect open to the public at http://trillian.sqlpower.ca/bugzilla You can browse through existing bugs and pick something to investigate, or if you've found any new bugs, you can sign up for a Bugzilla account and report them.

FishEye & Crucible

We are using Atlassian's FishEye (http://www.atlassian.com/software/fisheye/) tool to monitor changes and generate statistics from the Power*Architect's source code repository. We are also using Atlassian's Crucible (http://www.atlassian.com/software/crucible/) tool for peer code review with FishEye. The FishEye server is available at http://trillian.sqlpower.ca/fisheye

The Wishlist

For developers new to Power*Architect that want to start making contributions to Power*Architect there is a wishlist included with the source code that the developers have put together.