RFC: Tree Changes

From: Marc Maurer (j.m.maurer@student.utwente.nl)
Date: Mon Nov 03 2003 - 13:21:39 EST

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    Lets jump right to the actual content part:

    Our current source tree layout is getting insanely hard
    for people (possible new developers) to grasp. Furtermore
    our build and packaging systems are overly compilicated,
    since important things like plugins and help documentation
    resides outside the main abi module.

    I want to propose some changes to our current tree layout and
    present an idea on how bootstrap AbiShow (that cria thingy that
    did not came of the ground) within the current (or new) tree
    layout.

    Proposed Tree Changes:

    General Cleanup
    ===============

    1) Move the abiword-docs module into ./abi/docs
    2) Create ./abi/projects and move IDE projects to it, ie.:
       ./abi/projects/msvc
       ./abi/projects/anjuta
       ./abi/projects/...
    3) Move the abiword-plugins module into ./abi/src/plugins/wp and
       compile them by default *). Add the configure switches that
       are currently present in the abiword-plugins module to abi's
       configure, so people who don't want plugins can disable
       building them.

       This also means shipping them by default in _1_ package. Feedback
       like
    http://gnomedesktop.org/comments.php?op=Reply&pid=19257&sid=1426&mode=nested&order=0&thold=-1
       means we are not serving our users the best way we can. IMO, users
       prefer having most functionality by default any day over a download
       package that is as small as possible. They just want it
       "To Work", something we cannot say at all giving our current
       plugin distribution method.

       Besides, quite a lot of users don't even _know_ that plugins
       exists for some particular piece of functionality. That's not
       their fault, that's our fault.

    *) Plugins for AbiShow (see below) can go into ./abi/src/plugins/show.

    Making room for AbiShow
    =======================
    (Only to be done when developers show interest)

    1) Add an ./abi/src/show/ directory for the AbiShow application
       The layout of this dir will mirror the structure ./abi/src/wp, ie:
       ./abi/src/show/
       ./abi/src/show/ap
       ./abi/src/show/ap/{xp,unix,win,qnx,mac}
       We can start by just 'forking' ./abi/src/wp/ into ./abi/src/show/
    2) Some dialogs currently residing in ./src/wp/ap, like the
       FormatTable dialog might be moved to ./src/af/xap/, since
       they will be both used by AbiWord and AbiShow.
    3) Fiddle around with the build system to allow the building
       of AbiShow

    Feedback is welcome,
      Marc

    -- 
    Marc Maurer <j.m.maurer@student.utwente.nl>
    


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