Subject: potential developer/questions
From: Peter Allin (peter@arbejdskamp.dk)
Date: Sun May 06 2001 - 14:38:09 CDT
Hi,
I've been looking at Abiword for some time now, with the intent of joining
the project. In this time I've
lurked a bit on this list and looked some at the sourcecode. This has of
course resulted in a couple
of questions and comments.
- The build system
I try tracking the latest CVS version in order to keep up to date with the
development. Most of the time a CVS update results in compiler/linker
errors when I try compiling afterwards. Deleting the abi directory and
checking a new one out solves this. So it seems that some of the files
aren't recompiled. Since I haven't seen anyone else complaining I guess i'm
doing something wrong here. Any hints?
- Source code structure
I guess this one is a FAQ... Any hints about how to get an overview of the
source code? I've been looking at it for quite some time without really
getting a feel for it. Maybe the best way is to start working in one small
part and get to know that first? In that case: Any hints for good "beginner
projects"?
- A couple of bugs.
I've noticed two bugs. I'm not sure if they should be mentioned on this
list first or if I should just go ahead, get a Bugzilla account and report
them there? For now I'll describe them here before I forget all about them
;-)
gnome_init() called twice:
This isn't really serious, but it makes the program look a little shaky...
When starting the program (if compiled with gnome enabled of course) the
following is printed in the terminal:
GnomeUI-CRITICAL **: file gnome-init.c: line 489 (gnome_init): assertion
`gnome_initialized == FALSE' failed.
This is the result of the gnome_init() function being called twice. I
looked a litte into it (thought it'd be a good exercise to learn some of
the code) and found that it's called both in XAP_UnixGnomeApp::initialize()
and AP_UnixGnomeApp::main(). This is marked with a lot of HACK comments in
ap_UnixGnomeApp.cpp which explains it's done in order to show the splash
screen as soon as possible.
In my oppinion it seems sensible to remove the second gnome_init() (ie. the
one in XAP_UnixGnomeApp::initialize()) in order to stop calling it twice.
But of course the call rightly belongs there.... How about a compile time
conditional?
Highlight color stays after block delete:
If I highlight some text with a color and then delete a block containing
this text then the highlighting color stays. It disappears after the next
redraw of that region (if the window is minimized then maximed, or another
window is dragged past).
Thats all for now.. I hope I'll be able to put some work into this project
:-)
Regards,
Peter Allin
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