How to become an OpenEarth developer

To join the OpenEarth community request a free username and password by sending an email to the OpenEarth team.

Five step guideline to making your first contribution

1. Install TortoiseSVN to your computer
   • Download open source Subversion (SVN) client: TortoiseSVN (download win 32-bit version)
   • Install TortoiseSVN to your PC (you must reboot before proceeding)
2. Create checkout folder and download source code
   • Create a sourcecode checkout directory on your PC (Sourcecode requires app. 400 MB of diskspace). For instance : f:\checkouts\OpenEarthTools\
   • In any file explorer (Total Commander recommended) rightclick (hold for 1 second) and select SVNCheckout
   • Enter the url of the Join OpenEarth repository you want to use.

     If you use total commander, enable "Show overlay icons" in options to see which files were changed.

3. Enter your subversion username and password
   • Deltares users can use their Deltares login (ask the OpenEarth or McTools developers team to be added to the user list, see above).
   • External users can mail the OpenEarth developers team with a request for external username and password, see #How to become an OpenEarth developer

     If you get a question asking for the acceptance of SSL certificates select 'accept permanently'

     In some companies/institutes your PC may be behind a proxy server. In this case tick 'Enable Proxy Server' under Settings/Network in SubVersion and add the correct proxy Server address (ask your network administrator).

4. Perform an SVN update regularly to benefit from updates by co-developers.
   • Right-mouse click on the root directory of your check-out, and choose 'SVN Update' (Figure 1).
5. Commit your updates to the repository regularly.
   • Right-mouse click on the root directory of your check-out, and choose 'SVN commit ...' (Figure 1).
   • Do not commit all your updates at once. Commit only one coherent subset at a time, and provide a concise one-line description, to make clear to co-developers what you did. You can see where commits are required where the file/dir icons display a red !-mark (as McTools directory in Figure 1), rather then a green v-mark (as OpenEarthData directory in Fig 1). Note: these handy icons only show up after enabling "Show overlay icons", see above.
   • Do not commit functions that are partly finished, only commit working stuff, because OpenEarthTools should always consists of working stuff.
   • Right-mouse click on the root directory of your check-out, and choose 'TortoiseSVN >' (Figure 1) and then choose from the sub-menu.
     
     Figure 1: After installing TortoiseSVN this menu pops up when clicking yout right-mosue button.

Other things you must know

• OpenEarth guidelines:
  • matlab coding style

    Adding/removing/deleting complete files or directories needs to be done via SVN and NOT via your file browser as TotalCommander.

    For Deltares users: as a developer do not use the read-only work-copy on p:\mctools to make changes. Only use your own local checkout, and fix all tiny bugs when you encounter them.