-*- mode:outline; minor-mode:outl-mouse -*-

* Introduction
==============

You are running an experimental version of XEmacs.  Please do not
report problems with Beta XEmacs to comp.emacs.xemacs.  Report them to
xemacs-beta@xemacs.org.

** XEmacs Beta Mailing List
===========================

*** Subscribing
---------------

If you are not subscribed to the XEmacs beta list you should be.  Send
an email message with a subject of `subscribe' (without the quotes) to
xemacs-beta-request@xemacs.org and follow the directions.  You do not
have to fill out the survey if you don't want to.

*** Unsubscribing
-----------------

To unsubscribe from the list send an email message with a subject of
`unsubscribe' (without the quotes) to xemacs-beta-request@xemacs.org.

*** Administrivia
-----------------

The XEmacs beta list is managed by the SmartList mailing list package,
and the usual SmartList commands work.  Do not send mailing list
requests to the main address (xemacs-beta@xemacs.org), always send
them to xemacs-beta-request@xemacs.org.  If you have problems with the
list itself, they should be brought to the attention of the Mailing
List manager Chuck Thompson <cthomp@xemacs.org>.


** Beta Release Schedule
========================

The URL ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/beta/README always contains the best
estimate of when the next beta XEmacs will be released.  For weekend
betas the release time is generally in the vicinity of 2PM to 5PM US
Pacific Time (Universal Time minus 8 hours).  For weekday betas, the
release time is generally in the vicinity of 8PM to Midnight US
Pacific Time on the listed day.

While 19.15 and 20.x are in parallel development, a simultaneous
release day implies a release of 20.x first, followed a few hours
later by 19.15.

Betas are nominally a week apart, scheduled on every Saturday.
Midweek releases are made when a serious enough problem warrants it.


** Reporting Problems
=====================

The best way to get problems fixed in XEmacs is to submit good problem
reports.  Since this is beta software problems are certain to exist.
Please read through all of part II of the XEmacs FAQ for an overview
of problem reporting.  Other items which are most important are:

1.  Do not submit C stack backtraces without line numbers.  Since it
    is possible to compile optimized with debug information with GCC
    it is never a good idea to compile XEmacs without the -g flag.
    XEmacs runs on a variety of platforms, and often it is not
    possible to recreate problems which afflict a specific platform.
    The line numbers in the C stack backtrace help isolate where the
    problem is actually occurring.
 
2.  Attempt to recreate the problem starting with an invocation of
    XEmacs with `xemacs -q -no-site-file'.  Quite often problems are
    due to package interdependencies, and the like.  An actual bug in
    XEmacs should be reproducible in a default configuration without
    loading any special packages (or the one or two specific packages
    that cause the bug to appear).

3.  A picture can be worth a thousand words.  When reporting an
    unusual display, it is generally best to capture the problem in a
    screen dump and include that with the problem report.  The easiest
    way to get a screen dump is to use the xv program and its grab
    function.  Save the image as a GIF to keep bandwidth requirements
    down without loss of information.  MIME is the preferred method
    for making the image attachments.

* Compiling Beta XEmacs
=======================

** Building an XEmacs from patches
==================================

All beta releases of XEmacs are included with patches from the
previous version in an attempt to keep bandwidth requirements down.
Patches should be applied with the GNU patch program in something like
the following.  Let's say you're upgrading XEmacs 20.4-beta10 to
XEmacs 20.4-beta11 and you have a full unmodified XEmacs 20.4-beta10
source tree to work with.  Cd to the top level directory and issue the
shell command:

$ gunzip -c /tmp/xemacs-20.4-b10-20.4-b11.patch.gz | patch -p1

After patching check to see that no patches were missed by doing
$ find . -name \*.rej -print

Any rejections should be treated as serious problems to be resolved
before starting compilation.

After seeing that there were no rejections, issue the commands

$ ./config.status --recheck
$ make beta

and go play minesweep for awhile on an older XEmacs while the binary
is rebuilt.

** Building an XEmacs from a full distribution
==============================================

Locate a convenient place where you have at least 100MB of free space
and issue the command

$ gunzip -c /tmp/xemacs-20.4-b11.tar.gz | tar xvf -

(or the simpler `tar zxvf /tmp/xemacs-20.4-b11.tar.gz' if you use GNU
tar).

cd to the top level directory and issue an appropriate configure
command.  The maintainer uses the following at the time of this
writing:

./configure --with-offix --with-mule=yes --with-dialogs=athena3d \
	--cflags="-m486 -g -O4 -fno-strength-reduce -malign-loops=2 \
	-malign-jumps=2 -malign-functions=2" --with-sound=no \
	--with-xface=yes --error-checking=all --debug=yes \
	--with-scrollbars=athena3d \
	--with-canna=yes --with-wnn=yes --wnn-includes=/usr/X11R6/include/wnn

Save the output from configure that looks something like:
Configured for `i586-unknown-linux2.0.28'.

  Where should the build process find the source code?    /usr/src/xemacs-20.0
  What installation prefix should install use?            /usr/local
  What operating system and machine description files should XEmacs use?
        `s/linux.h' and `m/intel386.h'
  What compiler should XEmacs be built with?              gcc -m486 -g -O4 -fno-strength-reduce -malign-loops=2 -malign-jumps=2 -malign-functions=2
  Should XEmacs use the GNU version of malloc?            yes
  Should XEmacs use the relocating allocator for buffers? yes
  What window system should XEmacs use?                   x11
  Where do we find X Windows header files?                /usr/X11R6/include
  Where do we find X Windows libraries?                   /usr/X11R6/lib
  Compiling in support for XAUTH.
  Compiling in support for XPM.
  Compiling in support for X-Face headers.
  Compiling in support for GIF image conversion.
  Compiling in support for JPEG image conversion.
  Compiling in support for PNG image conversion.
  Compiling in support for Berkeley DB.
  Compiling in support for GNU DBM.
  Compiling in Mule (multi-lingual) support.
  Compiling in support for OffiX.
  Using the Lucid menubar.
  Using the Athena-3d scrollbar.
  Using the Athena-3d dialog boxes.

Then type make and you should have a working XEmacs.

After you have verified that you have a functional editor, fire up
your favorite mail program and send a build report to
xemacs-beta@xemacs.org.  The build report should include

1. Your hardware configuration (OS version, etc.)

2. Version numbers of software in use (X11 version, system library
   versions if appropriate, graphics library versions if appropriate).
   If you're on a system like Linux, include all the version numbers
   you can because chances are it makes a difference.

3. The options given to configure

4. The configuration report illustrated above

5. Any other unusual items you feel should be brought to the attention
   of the developers.

** Creating patches for submission
==================================

When making patches you should use the `-c', or preferably if your
diff supports it, `-u'.  Using ordinary diffs like this are
notoriously prone to error (and this one won't in fact work, since
I've already applied a patch to this file so the line numbers probably
don't match up any more).

$ diff -u old-file.c new-file.c

-or-

$ diff -c old-file.c new-file.c

Also, it is helpful for me if you create the patch in the top level of
the XEmacs source directory:

$ diff -u lwlib/xlwmenu.c~ lwlib/xlwmenu.c

I prefer patches to be accompanied by an update (either a raw entry or
a patch) to the appropriate ChangeLog file, but it is not required.

Also note that if you cut & paste from an xterm to an XEmacs mail buffer
you will probably lose due to tab expansion.  The best thing to do is to
M-x cd to the appropriate directory, and issue the command `C-u M-!' from
within XEmacs.

* XEmacs 20.3 packages

XEmacs 20.3 has added the concept of installable packages searched prior
to dump time when building.

Packages are searched by default under /usr/local/lib/xemacs/packages/.
The summary message in configure will tell you where XEmacs is looking 
for them.  The packages hierarchy differs from site-lisp in that you
do not have install XEmacs to use it, indeed, the package path is
searched prior to dump time so that installed packages have the same
status as lisp distributed in the xemacs base tarball.

The structure of each directory in the package search path should look
like the base installed directory (ie. have etc/, info/, and lisp/,).
Lisp is searched recursively.  It and all subdirectories are added to
the `load-path'.  Each etc directory is added to `data-directory-list',
and each info directory is added to `Info-default-directory-list'.

A `find . -type d -print' in my top-level package directory reveals:
./etc
./etc/auctex
./etc/auctex/style
./etc/gnus
./etc/skk
./etc/gnusrefcard
./etc/smilies
./etc/message
./info
./lisp
./lisp/gnus
./lisp/auctex
./lisp/auctex/man
./lisp/footnote
./lisp/skk


AUCTeX and Gnus have package tarballs in
	ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/beta/packages-20.3/
that you can simply untar in a package directory to install.

Karl Hegbloom has a set of packages in
	[I lost the reference]
that work the same way.

This is not how package installation will work in released 20.3.