Here to help

Talk about anything and everything related or unrelated to the FreeOrion project, especially Strategy Games.

Moderator: Oberlus

Post Reply
Message
Author
cyphic_sOph
Space Krill
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2016 3:50 pm

Here to help

#1 Post by cyphic_sOph »

Hello FreeOrion Developers, Contributors and Players,

I'm a web-software developer for my day-job, so that's one of the main reasons I'm here.
I haven't done C++ programming for now almost 15 years and I miss it a lot, so a week ago I started looking for an open source project, I could contribute to, when I stumbled across FreeOrion and found it mature and promising enough, to invest some of my free time.
I like 4X games, well more the Idea behind them, then actually playing (due to some ill-integrated mechanic or usability aspects, that just vaporizes the fun (at least in games, I really wanted to love))

So now I would like to contribute in the following (C++ Development) areas:
- bugfixes
- UI Development
- UE and UX work (Usability/User Experience)
- Optimization

- Maybe a little bit of Art and eventually some AI scripting way down the road...

My C++ is a bit rusty (as mentioned obove), and I will also have to freshen up on modern C++ (last time I used it, MSVS didn't even have full support for the 98 standard), so it will probably take me some time to settle in.
Will try to compile the code base now (well after the reboot, that the VisualStudio Installation demands).

So what can/should I start to work on first?
Don't want to conflict with other devs.

Best Regards,
sOph

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Here to help

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

There are numerous issues on the GitHub issue tracker that have to do with C++ coding:

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues

so, you might have a look over that list. Or, play the game yourself a bit, and see if there's an obvious UI problem you'd like to submit a fix / tweak for. Learning the C++ (and FreeOrion-specific stuff) will require diving in and looking over the code, probably while trying to modify it...

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: Here to help

#3 Post by MatGB »

Welcome.

Easiest thing to do to get started is to look through the Issues area on GitHub and see if there's something you think you might be able to handle, it's a mixture of bugs, feature requests and ongoing projects. I can barely read C++ so I can't say how well laid out it all is.

The project uses a mixture of C++ for the backend alongside Python for the AI and galaxy generation, for content it uses a bespoke scripting language called FOCS that's designed for non Dev types (like me) to be able to read and create content in, generally issues tagged Scripting are in/for FOCS, most else is Python or C++.

Basically, if you think an issue is something you can work on, comment on it to say so and people'll give you feedback. Geoff's the project lead and while he's slightly overwhelmed he's always been very helpful to me when I've got stuck, even on simple script parsing stuff I should've been able to spot.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

cyphic_sOph
Space Krill
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Jul 05, 2016 3:50 pm

Re: Here to help

#4 Post by cyphic_sOph »

I'm using VS2015 Community, is there a preferred/graceful solution/workaround for this case?

Or no way around, other than to get the newest boost library and recompile it, as well as upgrade all the solutions to vs140 version?

And I did so not want the first compile to fail this badly ;)

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Here to help

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

You can probably tell it to compile as MSVC 2013. Look in the project properties, platform toolset.

Making MVSC 2015 project files (or actually, a CMake setup to generate any) is an ongoing project, but doesn't work yet.

LGM-Doyle
Programmer
Posts: 219
Joined: Mon Feb 29, 2016 8:37 pm

Re: Here to help

#6 Post by LGM-Doyle »

Welcome sOph.

No one has mentioned that freeorion is in the midst of the release of v0.4.6.

If you want quick feedback on a PR try a bugfix or essential UI fix that needs to be included in the current release.

Any bigger or non-essential changes will be tagged post-v0.4.6 and not be reviewed until after the release.

Good luck on your compiler woes. We've all had them.

Post your output if you are having problems. One of the Windows devs may notice a missing dependency that fixes your compile with minimal hassle.

Post Reply