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1 This directory tree holds version 21.5 of XEmacs.
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2
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3
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4
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5 *** What is XEmacs?
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6
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7 XEmacs is a powerful, highly customizable open source text editor and
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8 application development system, with full GUI support. It is protected
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9 under the GNU Public License and related to other versions of Emacs, in
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10 particular GNU Emacs. Its emphasis is on modern graphical user
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11 interface support and an open software development model, similar to
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12 Linux. XEmacs has an active development community numbering in the
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13 hundreds (and thousands of active beta testers on top of this), and runs
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14 on all versions of MS Windows, on Linux, and on nearly every other
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15 version of Unix in existence. Support for XEmacs has been supplied by
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16 Sun Microsystems, University of Illinois, Lucid, ETL/Electrotechnical
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17 Laboratory, Amdahl Corporation, BeOpen, and others, as well as the
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18 unpaid time of a great number of individual developers.
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19
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20
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21
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22 *** What platforms does it run on?
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23
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24 -- MS Windows (It has been tested on NT, 2000, 95, 98, and ME; you
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25 can also compile Cygwin and MinGW versions.)
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26 -- Unix (It is regularly tested on Linux, Solaris, SunOS, HP/UX,
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27 FreeBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS aka BSDI, Tru64 aka DEC/OSF, SCO5,
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28 and probably others. It should work on all versions of Unix
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29 created in the last 10 years or so, perhaps with a bit of
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30 work on more obscure platforms to correct bit-rot. It uses
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31 a sophisticated configuration system to auto-detect zillions
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32 of features that are implemented differently in different
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33 versions of Unix, so it will probably work on your vendor's
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34 version, possibly with a bit of tweaking, even if we've
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35 never heard of it.)
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36 -- MacOS/X (As an X Windows application. Unfortunately there is no
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37 support currently for MacOS-specific features.)
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38
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39 There is also a port of XEmacs 19.14 (an older version, circa 1996)
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40 for all versions of MacOS, with extensive support for MacOS-specific
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41 features. See the FAQ for more details.
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42
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43 There are rumors of an in-progress port to OS/2. See the FAQ.
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44
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45 XEmacs will probably never work on MS/DOS or Windows 3.1, and we're
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46 not particularly interested in patches for these platforms, as they
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47 would introduce huge amounts of code clutter due to the woefully
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48 underfeatured nature of these systems. (See GNU Emacs for a port to
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49 MS/DOS.)
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50
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51
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52
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53 *** Where's the FAQ?
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54
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55 Look at `man/xemacs-faq.texi'.
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56
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57 For the very latest version, see
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58 http://cvs.xemacs.org/cgi-bin/cvswebxe/xemacs/man/xemacs-faq.texi.
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59
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60
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61
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62 *** Where's the latest version?
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63
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64 For up-to-date information on XEmacs, see http://www.xemacs.org.
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65
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66 To download XEmacs, see http://ftp.xemacs.org/ or
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67 ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/.
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68
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69 For the latest experimental sources, see http://cvs.xemacs.org/, which
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70 gives instructions on how to get started with CVS access.
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71
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72 There are numerous mailing lists for discussion of XEmacs. The
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73 current description of these lists can be found at
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74 http://www.xemacs.org/Lists/, or see `etc/MAILINGLISTS'. General
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75 discussion of bugs, new features, etc. takes place on
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76 xemacs-beta@xemacs.org.
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77
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78
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79
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80 *** How do I build and install XEmacs?
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0
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81
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82 See the file `etc/NEWS' for information on new features and other
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83 user-visible changes since the last version of XEmacs.
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84
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85 The file `INSTALL' in this directory says how to bring up XEmacs on
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86 Unix and Cygwin, once you have loaded the entire subtree of this
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87 directory.
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88
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89 See the file `nt/README' for instructions on building XEmacs for
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90 Microsoft Windows.
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91
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92 The file 'README.packages' will guide you in the installation of
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93 (essential) add on packages.
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94
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95
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96
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97 *** How do I deal with bugs or with problems building, installing, or running?
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98
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99 The file `PROBLEMS' contains information on many common problems that
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100 occur in building, installing and running XEmacs.
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101
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102 Reports of bugs in XEmacs should be sent to xemacs-beta@xemacs.org.
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103 You can also post to the newsgroup comp.emacs.xemacs (or equivalentlt,
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104 send to the mailing list xemacs@xemacs.org), but it is less likely
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105 that the developers will see it in a timely fashion. See the "Bugs"
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106 section of the XEmacs manual for more information on how to report
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107 bugs. (The file `BUGS' in this directory explains how you can find
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108 and read that section using the Info files that come with XEmacs.)
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109 See `etc/MAILINGLISTS' for more information on mailing lists relating
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110 to XEmacs.
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111
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112
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113 *** How do I get started developing XEmacs?
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114
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115 First, get yourself set up under CVS so that you can access the CVS
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116 repositories containing the XEmacs sources and the XEmacs packages.
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117
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118 Next, set up your layout. This is important, as a good layout will
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119 facilitate getting things done efficiently, while a bad layout will could
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120 lead to disaster, as you can't figure out which code is the most recent,
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121 which can be thrown away, etc. We suggest the following layout: (feel free
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122 to make changes)
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123
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124 -- Everything goes under /src/xemacs (use a different directory if you
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125 want). From now, instead of saying /src/xemacs, we use <xsrc-top>, to
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126 make it easier in case someone picked a different directory.
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127
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128 -- Package source is in <xsrc-top>/package-src.
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129
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130 -- Installed packages go under <xsrc-top>/xemacs-packages, and
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131 <xsrc-top>/mule-packages.
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132
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133 -- A "workspace" is a complete copy of the sources, in which you do work of
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134 a particular kind. Workspaces can be differentiated by which branch of
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135 the source tree they extend off of -- usually either the stable or
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136 experimental, unless other branches have been created (for example, Ben
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137 created a branch for his Mule work because (1) the project was long-term
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138 and involved an enormous number of changes, (2) people wanted to be able
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139 to look at what his work in progress, and (3) he wanted to be able to
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140 check things in and in general use source-code control, since it was a
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141 long-term project). Workspaces are also differentiated in what their
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142 purpose is -- general working workspace, workspace for particular
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143 projects, workspace keeping the latest copy of the code in one of the
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144 branches without mods, etc.
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145
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146 -- Various workspaces are subdirectories under <xsrc-top>, e.g.:
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147
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148 -- <xsrc-top>/working (the workspace you're actively working on,
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149 periodically synched up with the latest trunk)
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150
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151 -- <xsrc-top>/stable (for making changes to the stable version of
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152 XEmacs, which sits on a branch)
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153
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154 -- <xsrc-top>/unsigned-removal (a workspace for a specific, difficult
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155 task that's going to affect lots of source and take a long time, and
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156 so best done in its own workspace without the interference of other
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157 work you're doing. Also, you can commit just this one large change,
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158 separate from all the other changes).
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159
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160 -- <xsrc-top>/latest (a copy of the latest sources on the trunk,
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161 i.e. the experimental version of XEmacs, with no patches in it;
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162 either update it periodically, by hand, or set up a cron job to do it
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163 automatically). Set it up so it can be built, and build it so you
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164 have a working XEmacs. (Building it might also go into the cron job.)
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165
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166 This workspace serves a number of purposes:
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167 -- 1. You always have a recent version of XEmacs you can compare
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168 against when something you're working on breaks. It's true
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169 that you can do this with cvs diff, but when you need to do
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170 some serious investigation, this method just fails.
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171 -- 2. You (almost) always have a working, up-to-date executable that
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172 can be used when your executable is crashing and you need to
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173 keep developing it, or when you need an `xemacs' to build
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174 packages, etc.
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175 -- 3. When creating new workspaces, you can just copy the `latest'
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176 workspace using GNU cp -a. You have all the .elc's built,
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177 everything else probably configured, any spare files in place
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178 (e.g. some annoying xpm.dll under Windows, etc.).
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179
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180 -- <xsrc-top>/latest-stable/ (equivalent to <xsrc-top>/latest/, but
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181 for the Stable branch of XEmacs, rather than the Experimental branch
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182 of XEmacs). This may or may not be necessary depending on how much
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183 development you do of the stable branch.
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184
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185 -- <xsrc-top>/xemacsweb is a workspace for working on the XEmacs web site.
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186
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187 -- <xsrc-top>/in-patches for patches received from email and saved to files.
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188
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189 -- <xsrc-top>/out-patches for locally-generated patches to be sent to
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190 xemacs-patches@xemacs.org. Less useful now that the patcher util has been
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191 developed.
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192
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193 -- <xsrc-top>/build, for build trees when compiling and testing XEmacs with
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194 various configuration options turned off and on. The scripts in
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195 xemacs-builds/ben (see below) can be used to automate building XEmacs
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196 workspaces with many different configuration options and automatically
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197 filtering out the normal output so that you see only the abnormal
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198 output.
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199
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200 -- <xsrc-top>/xemacs-builds, for the xemacs-builds module, which you need
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201 to check out separately in CVS. This contains scripts used for building
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202 XEmacs, automating and simplifying using CVS, etc. Under various
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203 people's directories are their own build and other scripts. The
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204 currently most-maintained scripts are under ben/, where there are easily
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205 configurable scripts that can be used to easily build any workspace
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206 (esp. if you've more or less followed the layout presented above)
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207 unattended, with one or more configuration states (there's a
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208 pre-determined list of the most useful, but it's easy to change). The
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209 output is filtered and split up in various ways so that you can identify
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210 which output came from where, and you can see the output either full or
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211 with all "normal" output except occasional status messages filtered so
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212 that you only see the abnormal ones.
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213
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214 *** What's the basic layout of the code?
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215
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216 The file `configure' is a shell script to acclimate XEmacs to the
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217 oddities of your processor and operating system. It will create a
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218 file named `Makefile' (a script for the `make' program), which helps
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219 automate the process of building and installing emacs. See INSTALL
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220 for more detailed information.
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221
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222 The file `configure.in' is the input used by the autoconf program to
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223 construct the `configure' script. Since XEmacs has configuration
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224 requirements that autoconf can't meet, `configure.in' uses an unholy
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225 marriage of custom-baked configuration code and autoconf macros; it
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226 may be wise to avoid rebuilding `configure' from `configure.in' when
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227 possible.
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228
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229 The file `Makefile.in' is a template used by `configure' to create
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230 `Makefile'.
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231
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232 There are several subdirectories:
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233
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234 `src' holds the C code for XEmacs (the XEmacs Lisp interpreter and its
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235 primitives, the redisplay code, and some basic editing functions).
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236 `lisp' holds the XEmacs Lisp code for XEmacs (most everything else).
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237 `lib-src' holds the source code for some utility programs for use by
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238 or with XEmacs, like movemail and etags.
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239 `etc' holds miscellaneous architecture-independent data files
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240 XEmacs uses, like the tutorial text and the Zippy the Pinhead quote
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241 database. The contents of the `lisp', `info' and `man'
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242 subdirectories are architecture-independent too.
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243 `lwlib' holds the C code for the X toolkit objects used by XEmacs.
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244 `info' holds the Info documentation tree for XEmacs.
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245 `man' holds the source code for the XEmacs online documentation.
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246 `nt' holds files used compiling XEmacs under Microsoft Windows.
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