64262 - Need better mozilla cvs doc/faq

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Developer Documentation Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[David Krause]

This bug is to remind me to write a mozilla cvs doc/faq that timeless asked for.

Comment 1

[xyzzy]

I would like to see this too.  Fortunately, I stumbled upon an article that
helped me a lot at http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article2031.html .  This
might make for a good starting place.

As a CVS newbie, it would be helpful for me to have info on how to configure
WinCVS, especially for just pulling the most recent file(s) and creating
patches.  At present, the best ways I've seen for doing this are installing
Cygwin and using the Patchmaker, neither of which are convenient on my Windows
(non-development) system.

I will consider this documentation a success if it enables me to start
submitting patches with the stated limitations.  Hope I can help with this
effort, somehow.

Comment 2

[James Cox]

accepting QA for mozilla developer docs.

some of these bugs have been around for a _long_ time. Reporters, would you
please review the bugs, see if the issues have been resolved, and close bugs
appropriately.

I will do a full review of all bugs not touched in one week (8th April). 

Thanks.

</spam>

Comment 3

[David Krause]

Remove myself from the 2 open Documentation bugs and assign to default owner for
triage.  Not gonna happen until I get a working browser on OpenBSD.

Comment 4

[benc]

I'm working on a couple documents related to CVS.

One is a general "what the heck is CVS and where is it used in mozilla.org"

One is a Mac OS X and CVS document (this is how I got dragged into this)

At some point, I would like to rewrite the existing CVS documentation so that it
is task focused (developer and web site) and move it out of / and into a more
sensible location.

My CVS skills are really limited, but I think I speak from the point of the
"ignorant lout trying to get things to work" for the first time pretty well...

Comment 5

[benc]

I think the basic CVS overview document will be ready today.

I would like, however, to create a new directory in catalog/developer called
"tools", because it doesn't seem to fit any of the existing catgories. We have
"tools" link on the index bar of the mozilla site, but no tools sub-directory in
"catalog".

Please give this some thought, meanwhile, I'm going to either provide a
temporary link or attach the file to this bug.

Comment 6

[Keyser Sose]

Let me think about hte new catagory idea for a little bit here.

Comment 7

[benc]

"tools" got a mixed reaction today in the mozilla pit.

Please keep in mind that I plan on writting several cvs docs b/c I want to have
a starter guide for each OS.

In a nutshell, I didn't think "hacking" was a good location b/c some of the uses
of cvs have to do with non-hacking, like mozilla.org's web site.

Comment 8

[benc]

Attachment: first draft of cvs overview

Please review this and add comments.

Comment 9

[benc]

(somone said leaf was interested in this...).

I'm almost done writing the CVS + web page file as well, but I have to check two
last points...

Comment 10

[James Cox]

looks like a good start. :)

Comment 11

[benc]

So what do I do next? Is anyone going to make any changes?

Comment 12

[benc]

Should I also include info on how to reset your password?

https://despot.mozilla.org/despot.cgi

Comment 13

[benc]

I could use something more official sounding here:

small number of contributors (drivers, owners, mozilla staff, etc.)

Comment 14

[timeless]

ok we've decided to create a tools directory for this documentation.  we can
also put documentation for webtools in it or links to them if they are already
documented somewhere else.

catalog/development/tools

Comment 15

[benc]

I created bug 159022 to discuss a CVS & Website document.

Comment 16

[benc]

/cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/catalog/development/tools/cvs-intro.html,v  <-- 
cvs-intro.html
initial revision: 1.1
done

Comment 17

[benc]

The Mac OS X client docs are in:

RCS file: /cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/catalog/development/tools/cvs-macosx.html,v
done
Checking in cvs-macosx.html;
/cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/catalog/development/tools/cvs-macosx.html,v  <-- 
cvs-macosx.html
initial revision: 1.1
done

The maintainer of another client wrote me, and says there is another client on
the way. I'll add that when I get it.

Comment 18

[Keyser Sose]

I am not sure /catalog is the place for this..more specifically it should
probably go in /docs/ catalog is more the layout area. Though I am open to
discussion on this idea.

Comment 19

[benc]

norton is no longer in this bug cc, but I've been using CVS on Windows enough
now where I will probably start documenting it as well.

Comment 20

[benc]

leaf signed off on me making changes to the CVS docs.

I'm going to make some minor changes for now, like today, I added links to the
current cvs doc that describes Mac OS X clients.

I am considering re-writing the document, but my general writing style for
mozilla is a bit different, maybe a bit stale for a top level doc, so I would
really be interested in getting feedback.

Comment 21

[benc]

I'm going to take ownership of this.

I've had done most of the planning for the re-write, but not made changes to the
file yet.

Overall ETA is by end of year.

Comment 22

[John Hopkins]

This page:

http://www.mozilla.org/cvs.html

has instructions for downloading the source via Windows.  It is missing some
information:

1) You need to have "make" on your system to run the makefile.  This can be
accomplished by downloading and installing cygwin.  Make sure you select to
download "make".  Make needs to be in your path (add cygwin\bin).

2) If you have a non-gnu make (eg. Borland) installed and in your path, this can
cause the make to fail due to incompatible makefile format.  Possible solutions:
change your path to point to cygwin\bin first, or remove the path entries which
point to the non-gnu make.

Comment 23

[timeless]

um, /cvs.html describes getting the source. anything about building is not
covered by the document, that's covered by http://www.mozilla.org/build/ for
seamonkey and presumably by other build documents for other projects.

Comment 24

[John Hopkins]

>>/cvs.html describes getting the source. anything about building is not
>>covered by the document

You don't understand - my point is that "make" is required to obtain the source
code in the first place.  Building the source - once obtained - is an entirely
separate issue.

So either the user needs to be told how to get the source without anything but
the CVS client, or the instructions need to be updated to include the fact that
"GNU make" is required to download the source because it is downloaded by a
makefile.

Comment 25

[timeless]

fair enough. www-cvs changed. (i'd been meaning to do that for a while.)

Comment 26

[benc]

RCS file:
/cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/catalog/development/compiling/cvs-sourcecode.html,v
done
Checking in cvs-sourcecode.html;
/cvsroot/mozilla-org/html/catalog/development/compiling/cvs-sourcecode.html,v 
<--  cvs-sourcecode.html
initial revision: 1.1
done


For now, this version ignores the make dicussion in the above comments.

Comment 27

[benc]

RESOLVED/fixed:
All the individual docs that are needed have been written and placed here for
some time.

There are many pages with links that should be updated to point here, but the
transition to using these new pages has been held up. There are individual bugs
for each cvs page, so you can comment there, that would be great. If you cannot
find the right bug, email me, or comment here.

If something truly horrible has been written, please reopen this bug.

Comment 28

[benc]

RESOLVED/FIXED
make final updates to links.