How to contribute to the programming of the nodekit

This tutorial will show you the steps to set up a basic coding environment for Windows. It is easily written and aimed at beginners, although an introduction to the coding process itself cannot be covered in this short article. Directions for further learning are given.

The Nodekit software is written in the programming language C# (tiny bits also in C++). The source code is publicly available on sourceforge.net, where it is stored in a so called Subversion repository.

So in order to get started, we need to fetch the source code from the repository. A highly recommended tool for this job is TortoiseSVN. It's free software, you can download it here.

Additionally we want a convenient way to work with the source files, e.g. change or add code and then compile it. This can be done with the express version of Microsoft's Visual Studio. We will need both the C# and C++ versions, you can download them here.

After you have downloaded and installed the above mentioned developer tools, let's continue with the next step and grab the nodekit source code.

In the windows explorer, create a folder where you want to store the source code. Right click on the folder (or go inside and right click in the empty space), and select SVN Checkout… from the context menu.

In the next dialog window, there is a text field called URL of repository, where you have to enter the following: https://nodekit.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/nodekit

Then just click on OK and let the download begin. After the check out is finished, you will have the Nodekit source code in your specified directory and can start working with it.

Well, so much for the easy part . You now have the source code and can implement all the changes you want to. Giving an introduction to programming in general and to the entire Nodekit source in particular is unfortunately beyond the scope of this article. So the aim of this section is to give you some pointers on where to get further information.

If you're entirely new to programming or to C#, there are a lot of books and online tutorials to read on this topic. If you don't mind learning from online tutorials, a good place to start is the C# section of the MDSN.

If you already know your way around programming C#, go to the root folder of the source and open the TagTool.sln with Visual Studio C#. This will open the project, with the source files listed to the right (sorted functionally). Go through the sections that you have thought of to change and try to figure out how things work. We know that's not an easy task at first, but don't give up and feel free to ask questions in the discussion boards. Good luck!

If you have fixed a bug or added a new feature you would like to contribute, it is high time to submit the changes you have made to the code.

In order to do that, you have to register on www.sourceforge.net and contact one of the nodekit project admins. They can give you write access to the nodekit SVN repository.

If you have added new files to the project, e.g. a new class, locate the file and right click on it. From the context menu, choose Tortoise SVN… → Add….

Now go the root directory of the source, right click and select SVN Commit….

After that a new window pops up, where you can control exactly what files will be committed to the repository. You can deselect the files that needn't be changed. You can view the differences from your local copy and the one on the server by double clicking the file in the list.

It's also good practice to enter a short description of the changes you have made, it will show up in the log, and so others will get an idea of what was modified with your revision.