Hi,
I would like to download Inkscape source code and experiment and and compile it on my own on Windows operating system.
What are necessary development tools to work with that code? I guess that it should run with g++ compiler without significant problems, but what about GUI side? Are you using any RAD tool for that purpose?
Should I install some addinational libraries?
I ask because I don't want to install and try too many development tools (it's easy to make your system trash in this way).

Thanks in advance forresponse,
Greetings.

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

I can't speak to development tools, although others might have some more specific advice. I suspect that it's a matter of personal preference, as to which tools would be best, and that it would be hard for someone to suggest what you might find the most comfortable. If you try some "code editor" (a term which is probably not proper, but the best I can come up with at the moment ) and don't like it, it's a simple matter to just uninstall it and try another one. It doesn't trash your system (unless you choose some rogue program containing malware, and don't run security scans before installing).

But I can direct you to this page, in the Developer section, to get you started. http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Inkscape

OK, but what is your personal choice?
I mean, what is editor, compiler and other development tools which you use?

Greetings

Well, I'm not a developer, and I don't really know what all tools are necessary. The thing I called a "code editor" is what developers use to write the code (as far as I understand). I was thinking about trying to learn a little coding on my own, a few years ago. At that time, someone recommended Notepad ++. If I recall, it's an open source program and can be found at Sourceforge. I don't even know what a compiler is or does, or what other tools are needed for writing computer programs. I have the impression that it's probably a good idea to have 2 or more computers with a few different operating systems, and several or maybe all the current Inkscape versions, for testing.

Beyond that, maybe someone who does know about these things will reply. Happy coding

David Kevin wrote:OK, but what is your personal choice?

Can't really comment - not a Windows user myself (nor a developer), and on OS X, for the minor edits in the sources when testing patches I'm happy with Vim and the command line tools for building, debugging & bazaar.

David Kevin wrote:I mean, what is editor, compiler and other development tools which you use?

If you have specific questions (code, development, bug fixing and implementing new features), I'd recommend to

1. read the available developer documentation on inkscape.org and in the wiki
   (Note: the wiki might have some partially outdated pages - any help to improve that would be welcome).
2. search the archives of the developers mailing list inkscape-devel
   (searchable online archives e.g. offered by gmane or nabble)
3. subscribe to 'inskcape-devel' and ask code- and development-related questions there

For retreiving the sources from the repository at launchpad.net, see Bazaar (inkscape.org), for recommended workflows with bazaar "Working with Bazaar" (wiki).

With regard to "editor" - keep in mind that most active developers are working on Linux systems and might not rely on one or the other IDE (AFAIK many use Emacs or Vim as editor, and no IDE at all. OTOH I do recall mentions of e.g. 'Eclipse' on the developers' list, used on Linux as well as Windows).

For compiler and tools, you don't have that many choices AFAIU (unless you want to start from scratch - not using the provided devlibs for Windows, and prefer to build _all_ dependencies yourself, as well as possibly write a new build system for the Windows port). Did you already read the page in the wiki with detailed information about compiling inkscape (trunk) yourself on Windows?

• Compiling Inkscape on Windows

Note with regard to build systems: while cmake-based builds in the stable branch are broken, a lot of changes had been committed in trunk during the past year to make cmake a fully supported build system again (currently Inkscape uses autoconf/automake on linux and osx, and a custom buildtool for the Windows port). I have no idea if someone tested cmake in trunk recently for Windows builds, it has been reported to work on linux (it failed in my tests on osx).