Installers can be found on the product website.

This file contains information that may be useful to anyone wanting to work on WeSay development. Much of this information is Linux specific, but some of it applies to both Linux and Windows development.

In this document, $wesay refers to the directory of the wesay repository (e.g. ~/src/wesay or C:\dev\wesay).

You will need a few system packages installed.

sudo apt-get install libicu-dev curl

The basic WeSay repository is at github, and can be cloned as follows:

git clone git://github.com/sillsdev/wesay.git

SIL has Linux (Ubuntu/Debian) package repositories that are used to distribute software that are either original with us or specialized for our use. There are two basic repositories, often referred to as PSO or PSO-experimental. Two packages need to be installed from these repositories: geckofx29 and xulrunner-geckofx29 (which is a dependency of geckofx29).

The following commands will add the repositories to your apt setup and then download and install the packages. (You need to add the second repository only if the first repository doesn't work.)

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu precise main'
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://packages.sil.org/ubuntu precise-experimental main'
wget -O - http://packages.sil.org/sil.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install geckofx29

If you are not running precise on your machine, change precise and precise-experimental to match your actual distribution. If you are running debian instead of ubuntu, then substitute accordingly. (In that case, I don't think there's a distinction of -experimental.)

Unfortunately the stock Mono has a number of bugs that we have found and fixed over the years. Many of these fixes appear in newer versions of Mono. (Indeed, some of the fixes are cherry-picks from later versions of the standard Mono.) But enough fixes are specific to our work that we've been using a custom version of Mono in FieldWorks development for years. In order to benefit from this work, the same version of Mono will be used for WeSay as well in the future.

There are two ways to obtain this patched version of Mono: build it or install the packages for it. (Real programmers use the first method, since that allows for the possibility of adding your very own bugfixes to the mix!)

Five separate repositories contain the necessary code for building the custom version of Mono. These should all be installed side-by-side.

git clone git://github.com/sillsdev/mono.git
git clone git://github.com/sillsdev/mono-basic.git
git clone git://github.com/sillsdev/gtk-sharp.git
git clone git://github.com/sillsdev/libgdiplus.git
git clone git://github.com/sillsdev/mono-calgary.git

The first four repositories contain the actual source code cloned from the Mono project. The fifth repository contains the build scripts and packaging information developed by SIL, largely by the Linux team based in Calgary. After cloning these repositories, then the patched mono can be built and installed to /opt/mono-sil by the following command (assuming these five repositories are all cloned with their default names and the current directory is still the common parent):

mono-calgary/BuildOptMono.sh

This will prompt you for your password to enable some sudo commands in the script. Depending on how fast your computer is, it may take 15 minutes to an hour to finish compiling and installing everything, and it may prompt you more than once for your password.

If you don't want to build Mono for yourself (coward!!), then you can install the following packages from PSO (or PSO-experimental as the case may be):

mono-sil
mono-basic-sil
gtk-sharp2-sil
libgdiplus-sil

These packages install everything into the same place, /opt/mono-sil. I haven't actually tested whether installing works as well as building.

The simplest way to compile wesay is to use a batch file that calls msbuild.exe (on Windows) or a shell script that calls xbuild (on Linux). For example, in a Windows "DOS box" window,

cd $wesay\build
TestBuild.bat

On linux, the operation is similar:

cd $wesay/build
./TestBuild.sh

These scripts perform a Debug build, placing the result in $wesay/output/Debug.

If you prefer a Release build, then add Release as a command line argument to TestBuild.bat or TestBuild.sh. The result would then appear in $wesay/output/Release.

In Windows, WeSay can be debugged using Visual Studio Community 2015.

For Linux, debugging requires using MonoDevelop, the standard Mono IDE. You have a choice of using the standard MonoDevelop that comes with the system, which for Ubuntu/Precise was version 2.8, or using a newer version installed into /opt. The newer version can be installed as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ermshiperete/monodevelop
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install monodevelop-current

In either version of MonoDevelop, you can choose which Mono runtime to use for a project, and you can add new Mono runtimes to the known list. The Edit menu has a Preferences command near the bottom. Click on that and choose the ".NET Runtimes" panel under Projects. Click on the Add button and use the file chooser to find /opt/mono-sil. Once you choose that, you should see "Mono 3.4.0.1 (/opt/mono-sil)" as a possible choice. Click on that item to select it, then click on "Set as Default". (of course, only if you do want it as the default...) After loading the WeSay solution (or creating your own solution to run WeSay if you like to be tricky), double check the runtime with the "Active Runtime" command in the Project menu.

One more step is essential to actually get WeSay to run properly with the Mono runtime in /opt/mono-sil. Under the Project menu, select the "ProjectName Options" command. This brings up the Project Options dialog. Choose the General pane under Run and add the environment variable MONO_ENVIRON with the proper value for your installation. This would be the full path to your wesay repository with "/environ" appended to it. For example, the setting might be something like this:

MONO_ENVIRON	   /home/steve/sillsdev/wesay/environ

Be sure to click elsewhere in the dialog before clicking on the OK button. One of MonoDevelop's aggravating "features" is that clicking OK does not by itself save the most recent edit. But losing focus to elsewhere in the same dialog does save the edit. But enough editorializing...

People have had varying success in running unit tests from inside MonoDevelop. Someone who has had success will have to describe how they did it and the rest of us will have to verify whether it's a general solution.

The project files in the $wesay/build folder have targets that will run all of the unit tests. Once everything has been built with the Build or Compile target (which is what the TestBuild files described above do), then unit tests can be run by using the TestOnly target. For Windows, the command line would look something like this:

cd $wesay\build
msbuild.exe /t:TestOnly /p:RootDir=.. /p:Configuration=Release build.win.proj

For Linux, it would be similar (adjust the setting for MONO_ENVIRON):

cd $wesay
export MONO_ENVIRON=$PWD/environ
cd build
/opt/mono-sil/bin/xbuild /t:TestOnly /p:RootDir=.. /p:Configuration=Release build.mono.proj

• princexml.com/download (for PDF exports and related unit tests)

For developers, there are a few dependencies that may need to be installed manually. (These should be installed automatically for users by the Linux package system.) Here are the packages that we are aware of (in command line format):

sudo apt-get install chmsee

Vagrant is a tool to "Create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable development environments." There are pre-packaged base images for Precise64 and Wasta64 distributions using VirtualBox. These work on Linux, Windows, and Mac. To install on Linux from the command-line:

sudo apt-get install vagrant

To install on Windows or Mac, download the installer. After installation, install the required plugins from the command-line on all platforms:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-cachier
vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

The pre-packaged base images do not have dependencies installed. The provisioning script (bootstrap.sh) is executed once when the VM is started and will install all the dependencies needed to run a local build of WeSay executables. The first time the VM is started, it will have to download the required packages and then they are cached for subsequent runs. Run these commands from the command-line in the host (use the appropriate directory separator):

cd $wesay/vagrant
vagrant up precise64 (or wasta)

The status output of the provisioning (bootstrap.sh) will display in the terminal console that executed the vagrant up command. When it is completed, it will have mounted $wesay to /wesay inside the VM. If the host and VM with have the same line endings (e.g. Ubuntu Saucy host and Ubuntu Precise VM), the /wesay directory can be used directly within the VM. Run these commands from the command-line in the VM:

cd /wesay
. environ
mono output/Release/WeSay.App.exe

When testing is complete, clean up the virtual machine by running these commands from the command-line of the host machine:

cd $wesay/vagrant
vagrant destroy precise64 (or wasta)

Run vagrant -h from the command-line for other commands to halt, suspend, resume, etc or refer to the documentation.

If the host and VM have different line endings (e.g. Windows host and Ubuntu Precise VM), then the mapped drive within the VM will have files with non-native line endings. To work around this, setup a development directory inside the VM. There is a script in the $wesay/vagrant directory to setup a clone in the ~/src/wesay directory referencing the git repo in the host. Run these commands from the command-line inside the VM:

cd /wesay/vagrant
./setup-vm-wesay-dev.sh
cd ~/src/wesay
build/buildupdate.mono.sh
build/TestBuild.sh
. environ
mono output/Release/WeSay.App.exe

To test changes in TeamCity configuration and build/buildupdate.*.sh, it is best to use a clean environment. There is a script in the $wesay/vagrant directory to install buildupdate to enable updating the buildupdate scripts. A clean development directory should be setup first. Run these commands from the command-line inside the VM:

cd /wesay/vagrant
./setup-vm-wesay-dev.sh
sudo ./setup-buildupdate.sh
cd ~/src/wesay
../Buildupdate/buildupdate.rb -f build/buildupdate.mono.sh
build/buildupdate.mono.sh
build/TestBuild.sh
. environ
mono output/Release/WeSay.App.exe

To set up a windows box for developing WeSay you need to install the following tools:

• VS 2010, (Express works OK)
• WIX 3.5 (Works fine)
• Git-1.9.x (See a helpful configuration below for as you install it) => you can grab this from: msysgit.github.io
  • Select Components Dialog
    • Additional Icons (if you want them)
    • Windows Explorer integration (simple, check all)
    • Otherwise stick with the defaults
  • Adjusting your PATH environment Dialog
    • Radio button recommendation:
      • Run Git and included Unix tools from the Windows Command Prompt (If you don't want that option, then select: "Run Git from the Windows Command Prompt")
  • Configuring the line ending conversions Dialog
    • Radio button recommendation:
      • Checkout as-is, commit Unix-style line endings

Configure the following environment variables:

For a nice alternative graphical git tool,

• Sourcetree - unfortunately not available for Linux yet :(
• giteye
• Smartgit

Some other helpful developer editing, or troubleshooting tools:

• Notepad++ - for source code editing
• JetBrains dotPeek - for decompiling .NET assemblies
• Process Explorer - for looking at which dlls are loaded, and for looking at which files are opened or loaded
• depends - for troubleshooting system errors in loading and executing modules

To build for installer, just type in the windows command prompt:

buildupdate.win.sh -f
TestBuild.bat Release Installer

buildupdate.win.sh does a "full" update the libraries needed to build WeSay. TestBuild.bat builds a Release version of the Installer.

NOTE: If you have set up your bash commands not to work within the windows command prompt as above, you will need to execute buildupdate.win.sh command in a bash window.