README

Introduction
============

Purpose of this README file is to describe how to create simple
autotools-enabled application in step-by-step manner. Note that build system of
this package is a bit different than in most other autotools based packages,
since it uses non-recursive make. Ask your favourite search provider what
non-recursive make is and why you should use it.

Main goals of this package are:
 - show how to "bootstrap" new project from thin air
 - demonstrate use of non-recursive make
 - show how to set up translations (vital in free software)
 - show how most commonly used pieces (glade files, custom icons) fit together
   to form complete GTK+ application

General guide is presented in this README file, for detailed description see
sources itself (they are heavily documented).

Lines starting with '$< ' in this document indicate that you should type this
into terminal. Lines starting with '$> ' indicate return value from previously
entered command.


Creating initial directory structure
====================================

We'll start by creating simple directory structure that will house our files.

$< mkdir snrmga
$< cd snrmga
$< mkdir data po src
$< cd data
$< mkdir icons pixmaps ui
$< cd icons
$< mkdir 22x22 24x24 32x32 48x48 scalable
$< cd ../..

After you execute all of te above commands, you should end up with directory
structure like this one (I created this one using tree command):

.
├── data
│   ├── icons
│   │   ├── 22x22
│   │   ├── 24x24
│   │   ├── 32x32
│   │   ├── 48x48
│   │   └── scalable
│   ├── pixmaps
│   └── ui
├── po
└── src

Src folder will hold our program sources, data folder will hold non-source files
that are needed by application (icons, pixmaps, desktop file ...) and po folder
will hold translations.

Toplevel source directory will hold Makefile.am file, configure.ac file and
autogen.sh script. All other files in toplevel directory will be created by
autotools or our autogen script.

Creating files
==============

Next thing we need to do is create some files to work with. I won't describe
which files you need to create here, since you can easily inspect contents of my
demo package. But just for the record (if you have already generated any files),
this is how directory structure should look like after files are created:

.
├── autogen.sh
├── configure.ac
├── data
│   ├── icons
│   │   ├── 16x16
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 22x22
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 24x24
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 32x32
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 48x48
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   └── scalable
│   │       └── snrmga.svg
│   ├── pixmaps
│   │   ├── image_a.png
│   │   └── image_b.png
│   ├── snrmga.desktop.in.in
│   └── ui
│       └── snrmga.glade
├── Makefile.am
├── po
└── src
    └── snrmga.c


Prepare translation machinery
=============================

To set thing up, move to po folder, create POTFILES.in, POTFILES.skip and
LINGUAS files and ask intltool to do initial package inspection. We'll use
results of this inspection as starting point.

$< cd po
$< touch POTFILES.in POTFILES.skip LINGUAS
$< intltool-update -m

$> The following files contain translations and are currently not in use. Please
$> consider adding these to the POTFILES.in file, located in the po/ directory.
$>
$> data/snrmga.desktop.in.in
$> data/ui/snrmga.glade
$>
$> If some of these files are left out on purpose then please add them to
$> POTFILES.skip instead of POTFILES.in. A file 'missing' containing this list
$> of left out files has been written in the current directory.
$> Please report to tadeboro@gmail.com

$< mv missing POTFILES.in

Now we have our final layout finished. Tree looks like this:

.
├── autogen.sh
├── configure.ac
├── data
│   ├── icons
│   │   ├── 16x16
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 22x22
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 24x24
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 32x32
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   ├── 48x48
│   │   │   └── snrmga.png
│   │   └── scalable
│   │       └── snrmga.svg
│   ├── pixmaps
│   │   ├── image_a.png
│   │   └── image_b.png
│   ├── snrmga.desktop.in.in
│   └── ui
│       └── snrmga.glade
├── Makefile.am
├── po
│   ├── LINGUAS
│   ├── POTFILES.in
│   └── POTFILES.skip
└── src
    └── snrmga.c


Finishing touches
=================

Last thing we need to do is add some files that are mandated by autotools. These
files are AUTHORS, README, NEWS and ChangeLog. You can simply touch them to make
build system happy, but you should at least fill AUTHORS file with your name. It
is considered good idea to properly fill ChangeLog too, but if you're using
source control and set proper commit messages, you can skip this.

All files that we created this far should go unders source control. All files
that will be generated later do not belong to source control.


Compiling/installing package
============================

All that is left to do now is test our shiny new package. All we need to do is
execute this sequence of commands:

$< ./autogen
$< make
$< su -c make install

This procedure will install package under /usr/local. Now you can test it by
running snrmga binary from /usr/local/bin folder.


Adding translations
===================

To add new translation, do this:

$< ./autogen.sh
$< cd po
$< make update-po

This will create snrmga.pot template. New translation is then realized using
msginit application like this (replace sl with your locale):

$< msginit -l sl

This will produce sl.po file, which should be translated by translator.

Last thing we need to do is add our new locale to LINGUAS file:

$< echo "sl" >> LINGUAS

Next tim we run "make update-po", our new locale file will be automatically
updated.