Re: [Evolution-hackers] newcomers: How should I compile Evolution?

[Matthew Barnes <mbarnes redhat com>]

On Thu, 2014-03-06 at 09:58 +0100, Fabiano Fidêncio wrote:
> I can bet that (almost) every contributor has a different way to setup
> the environment, compile and use the fresh compiled Evolution and I'm
> here to describe the way I do my setup (based on Matthew's setup) :-)

Nice instructions!  I should transcribe this to a wiki page.

Let me amend this with a couple more tricks...

I also have three scripts (or just aliases would work too) named:

   autogen-eds

   autogen-evo

   autogen-ews

Each of these is basically just...

   ./autogen.sh --prefix=$PREFIX (yadda, yadda, yadda)

This is where I keep the configure options I routinely use for building
evolution-data-server, evolution, and evolution-ews, respectively.  It's
mainly just options like --enable-this or --disable-that, etc.  That way
I don't have to remember them all or keep them typing them all.

Also, a newcomer may not need this but just for completeness, I also
have a script named 'stable', which is almost the same as 'unstable',
but uses a different PREFIX ($HOME/local/stable).  It too references
'common', which is why 'common' is a separate script.

I use 'stable' for building our latest "stable" branch, currently
gnome-3-10.  It uses a different install prefix so I don't mix files
from the two branches.  That would be bad.

Also, speaking of branches, generic git trick:

For me the 'git-new-workdir' script that comes with git is a life saver!
It allows you have multiple working directories for the same repo
without cloning the whole repo, each checked out to a different branch.

That was my biggest complaint with git when I first started using it --
that to switch branches I first had to pack up whatever I was doing in
the current working directory, switch branches, and wipe the working
directory clean so I don't pick up build artifacts from the other
branch.  But that increases the build time and slows me down.

The 'git-new-workdir' script solves this, but it's not installed in
/usr/bin for some reason.  You have to dig it out of:

   /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/workdir

or some similar place on your distro.  Just copy the script to your
$HOME/.local/bin, and do "git-new-workdir --help" to see how it works.

That's my bag of tricks.

Matthew Barnes