WeeChat Tester's Guide
======================
Sébastien Helleu <flashcode@flashtux.org>


[[purpose]]
Purpose
-------

Many thankful users ask us how can they help developing WeeChat. The
easiest (and also most tricky) way to help developing WeeChat is
testing!

Testing is a very important part of software development and should not be
underestimated. When some features are implemented it should be tested, but for
some features there are too many use cases or these cases are tricky and
developers can't try out every case.

For example: A notorious charset plugin was introduced in WeeChat 0.2.2: none
of us (developers, contributors and testers) used channels with national
characters in their names and when 0.2.2 was released we got flooded by Russian
users blaming us. If we have more testers it should not happen again in the
future.

Testing the stable version of WeeChat is pointless because developers are busy
implementing new stuff (and fixing old bugs) all the time.


[[prepare_system]]
Prepare your system
-------------------

It would help us a lot if you enable Linux 'core' files: if WeeChat crashes,
Linux will write a file called 'core'. This file contains very useful debug
info, to know exactly where is problem in WeeChat.

If you're using the 'bash' shell, add following line to your `~/.bashrc`:

  ulimit -c unlimited


[[download]]
Download devel version
----------------------

Fresh code (with latest bugs and features) is stored in a GIT repository.

You may decide to build it manually (recommended way):

* the GIT version can be built and installed in parallel to the stable version,
* you don't need root access, and you don't need to sacrifice the stable
  version of WeeChat.

[[get_sources]]
Get and build sources
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First create a directory, for example 'weechat-git':

---------------------
$ mkdir ~/weechat-git
$ cd ~/weechat-git
---------------------

If you have git installed, you can just clone the git repository (recommended
way):

--------------------------------------------
$ git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/weechat.git
$ cd weechat
--------------------------------------------

NOTE: Later, you can run "`git pull`" in this directory, to get deltas with
the latest updates.

Otherwise you can download and unpack 'devel' package:

-----------------------------------------------------------------
$ wget http://www.weechat.org/files/src/weechat-devel.tar.bz2
$ tar xvjf weechat-devel.tar.bz2
$ cd weechat-devel
-----------------------------------------------------------------

To build sources, cmake is recommended:

--------------------------------------------------------------
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake .. -DPREFIX=$HOME/weechat-git -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
$ make
$ make install
--------------------------------------------------------------

If you don't have cmake, it's still possible to use autotools:

----------------------------------------------------------
$ ./autogen.sh       # (only if you cloned git repository)
$ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/weechat-git
$ make
$ make install
----------------------------------------------------------

[[install_binary_package]]
Install binary package
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

According to your Linux distribution:

* Debian: http://debian.flashtux.org/
* Gentoo: http://www.weechat.org/download
* ArchLinux: PKGBUILD from http://aur.archlinux.org/
* other: we don't know! Eheh.


[[run]]
Run WeeChat
-----------

It's recommended to run WeeChat with another directory (different from stable
version), with option `--dir`.

Command is:

  ~/weechat-git/bin/weechat-curses --dir ~/.weechat-dev

If you're still awake you should see the familiar interface and brag about
having the newest possible version of WeeChat. ;)

Now if you experience strange behavior (it may have issues or crash or boil
your beer) don't hesitate to join `#weechat` at `irc.freenode.net` and tell us.

If it doesn't crash - tell us too, we need your feedback!


[[links]]
Useful links
------------

* GIT repository: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=weechat.git
* Bug tracker: https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=weechat
* WeeChat commits RSS feed: http://git.savannah.gnu.org/gitweb/?p=weechat.git;a=rss
