Public Access to the latest TDM Source Code in SVN

[greebo]

I've reconfigured our repository server to allow public read-only access to the source code. This means interested readers can check out the latest code from the SVN trunk and produce patches or similar. It's also possible to view the changes in detail, or have a look at the SVN commit log, statistics and such.

 

The public read-only SVN URL is https://svn.thedarkmod.com/publicsvn/darkmod_src/trunk

 

Only team members and contributors are allowed to commit to this repository. Also note that the actual asset base (the stuff that ends up in all the tdm_*.pk4 files) is not open for public viewing, since the team feels that there should be something left for the actual releases.

 

No guarantees, support, whatsoever, just download the code and have fun with it.

 

The big disclaimer: This SVN version of the source code is unstable and therefore only targeted at the interested reader or possible contributor. We cannot guarantee it will run properly with the asset base from the latest stable release, nor will we (the TDM team) offer support – we just don’t have the manpower for that. Just take it as it is, play around with it, learn from it, etc. Some parts of the source code are in flux and need to be viewed as unfinished or buggy. Please let the responsible programmer finish their task before commmenting on the code or offering patches. The game mechanics as they are implemented in this source code have usually been discussed very deeply by the team and are not open for discussion. Only confirmed issues from the bugtracker and possibly new features (gameplay / renderer /…) are welcome additions. It might be a good idea to ask in the forums before implementing new features, to measure the chances of them being accepted by the team. You can ask questions, of course, but don't be disappointed if they are left unanswered.

 

Consider this a move towards opening the TDM development to the community. Maybe something comes out of it.

Edited February 16, 2015 by greebo
new public url

[STiFU]

Hack and read away, people!! Have fun!

 

I am anxious to see whether you guys will fulfill all the pros in our pro-con-discussion.

[lowenz]

A github friendly version?

[nbohr1more]

Fantastic news!

 

Let the new contributions commence!

[STiFU]

A github friendly version?

Github had actually been suggested by me initially, however many arguments have been given against it. For one thing, we already have the SVN-server up and running and would like to keep everything in one place (the assetbase and the sourcecode repository that is). There is also a pretty big entry barrier for using github, so we'll just stick with the existing system.

[New Horizon]

A github friendly version?

 

It makes no sense for us to migrate to github or maintain a separate repo when we already have a perfectly functioning SVN server. Tortoise SVN is pretty easy to use.

[i30817]

Yeah, but github has a much better patch management system. Can understand if you don't like DVS's though

[Friendly_Taffer]

I am not sure if I understand this correct, I have to download this so I can beta-test?

[Tels]

No, this is just the source code repository. If you want to beta-test, you need the main repository instead. The source code is checked out and compiled by the developers, which then check the resulting .exe and tdm_game* files into the main repository.

[Friendly_Taffer]

Ok, but where can I find it? I'm such a noob

[Tels]

Should be here:

 

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/14785-downloading-tdm20/

 

If you have no access to that topic, then please ask Springheel. (I'm not sure who is allowed to beta-test and who not and have no say in this matter).

[simplen00b]

At the moment I think there are enough beta-testers - http://forums.thedar...post__p__311111

[c0mputer-fr0d]

isn't letting me clone it on my machine asks me for auth

[c0mputer-fr0d]

nvm I was doing it wrong I need to use the checkout tool rather than the import tool I've only used git before

[nbohr1more]

Re: GitHub...

 

On considering this further, I still think it would be valuable to mirror to GitHub. This would give modern developers a familiar interface to work with

and collaborate on. The biggest boon being project forking and experimentation.

 

In short, we don't know who or what we're missing by only offering read-only SVN access.

 

Since the project is GPLv3, technically anyone could make a Git for it though it might reflect a little poorly on us

if only someone outside the project did this?

 

It seems there is a way to automate sync between Git and SVN:

 

https://gist.github.com/stefanfoulis/909746

 

Thoughts?

[gnartsch]

So, using SVN I could get the latest code.

But how about the 2.02 release code ?

The 'TDM Download' page still offers the 2.01 source code only.

http://www.thedarkmod.com/downloads/

[SteveL]

Can you access the 2.02 tag in the public repo? Or is it only the trunk with public access?

 

https://svn.thedarkmod.com/svn/darkmod_src/tags/2.02

[gnartsch]

Ah, I can see the 2.02 tag as well.

I will install the Tortoise SVN then, I guess.

Thanks!

[SteveL]

Cool. Yes the 2.02 is the right one to use for experiments right now.

 

The code currently under development for 2.03 won't work right without the 2.03 assets from the darkmod repo because people have committed some new UI elements and new scripts.

[gnartsch]

Just curious:

although I downloaded the entire TDM source from https://svn.thedarkmod.com/svn/darkmod_src/tags/2.02, there are a quite a couple of files missing.

E.g. all those *.gui files which can be found in the installed game (tdm_gui01.pk4)

\guis\mainmenu_newgame.gui

...

 

Where do they come from?

I do not see them in SVN (neither as is nor in any sort of archive), nor do I see any script that might produce them.

[Tels]

These files (along with support scripts and other info) are all in the main SVN of TDM, which the public sady does not have access to.

[Obsttorte]

You can use the pk4s from the current version, but you will not have new materials or models then.

[SteveL]

That's why I recommended using the 2.02 tag when downloading the public source code repo. The latest code uses new assets that won't be available until the next release, including some unfinished ones that'll get further changes between now and then. The 2.02 tag works with the 2.02 release pk4s, so you can use it to test stuff and make patches if you wish.

[gnartsch]

Well, I am not a mapper and therefor not at all interested in the latest details of AI development, or similar purely game-mechanics related things.

That's perfectly out of scope for me peronally.

It's rather like I enjoy looking into existing problems and trying to help to identify the root cause and potentially provide a fix.

But with a reasonable amount of code not found in SVN (which did come as a surprise to me),

some issues are simply impossible to spot - unless you know that more is out there.

So, I wonder why not all the TDM code gets released, but only a portion of it?

I guess the answer is that the rest are mostly fairly huge collections of textures, images, sounds and what not that the team does not want to share too easily or that would cause too much traffic from too many people. Don't know.

But maybe some other stuff like gui-code, (e.g. those mainmenu_*.gui) files are sort of out of place there and should be part of the public SVN.

Oh well, at least now I know where to look for those cruicial parts.

[SteveL]

So, I wonder why not all the TDM code gets released, but only a portion of it?

What's in the public svn is the complete c++ source code that builds the game dll and TheDarkMod.exe. The text files like the guis, material definitions, animations and all the binary image files that they use are kept with the assets in the private repo and only made public at release time. Like you say, the reasoning for that applies to the new binary assets rather than .gui files, but it would be hard to manage them separately from the binary assets that they reference. It's quite rare for a bugfix to need updated versions of those asset files by the way. You could fix this if you wanted using the public repo and 2.02 release pk4s. Out of all the bugs I've worked on, only a couple have needed me to touch any asset files (.script in my case), and they were otherwise unchanged since 2.02.