= Noosfero: a free web-based social platform

== Setting up a Noosfero development/test environment

Noosfero is written in Ruby with the "Rails framework":http://www.rubyonrails.org,
so the process of setting it up is pretty similar to other Rails applications.

=== Requirements

noosfero is intended to be run in Debian stable. It can work in other environments, but we do not test on them.

You need to have a Subversion client (svn) installed, as well as:

* Ruby: http://www.ruby-lang.org/
* Rake: http://rake.rubyforge.org/
* Ruby-GetText: http://www.yotabanana.com/hiki/ruby-gettext.html?ruby-gettext (at least version 1.9.0)
* Ruby-sqlite3: http://rubyforge.org/projects/sqlite-ruby
* rcov: http://eigenclass.org/hiki/rcov
* Ferret: http://ferret.davebalmain.com/trac
* RMagick: http://rmagick.rubyforge.org/
* RedCloth: http://whytheluckystiff.net/ruby/redcloth/
* will_paginate: http://github.com/mislav/will_paginate/wikis
* contacts: http://github.com/cardmagic/contacts/tree/master
* iso-codes: http://pkg-isocodes.alioth.debian.org/
* feedparser: http://packages.debian.org/sid/libfeedparser-ruby

There are Debian packages available for all of them but ferret. Try:

 # aptitude install subversion ruby rake libgettext-ruby1.8 libsqlite3-ruby rcov librmagick-ruby libredcloth-ruby libwill-paginate-ruby iso-codes libfeedparser-ruby libferret-ruby

If you have problems with the setup, use the development mailing list. In
special its possible that the requirements list above is not complete.

=== Boostraping the test environment

You can copy and paste the commands below into a terminal (please review the
commands and make sure you understand what you are doing):

 # checkout the code from repository
 svn checkout https://svn.colivre.coop.br/svn/noosfero/trunk/ noosfero
 # enter the directory
 cd noosfero
 # copy a sample config file
 cp config/database.yml.sqlite3 config/database.yml
 # create the database:
 rake db:migrate      
 # compile translations:
 rake makemo
 # create some test data:
 ./script/populate
 # install the test dependences:
 aptitude install libtidy-ruby libhpricot-ruby libmocha-ruby imagemagick
 # run the automated test suite to make sure your environment is sane:
 rake test

You should now be ready to go. Issue the following command to start the Rails
development server:

 ./script/server

The server will be available at http://localhost:3000/ . If you want to use
another port than 3000, you can use the -p option of ./script/server:

 ./script/server -p 9999

The above command makes the server available at http://localhost:9999/

The populate script creates some test users, one of them has login 'ze' and
password 'test'. You can use it or you can register a new user.

== Reporting bugs

Use Noosfero Tracker application at http://www.colivre.coop.br/Noosfero.

== Helping with development

* It's recommended that you subscribe to the development mailing
  list: http://ynternet.net/mailman/listinfo/noosfero
* If you have a patch, create an appropriate action item
  (bugs/requirement/enhancement) in the Tracker web (see "Reporting bugs"
  above) of type.

== Releasing noosfero

To prepare a release of noosfero, you must follow the steps below:

* finish all requirements and bugs assigned to the to-be-released version
* make sure all tests pass
* write release notes at the version's wiki topic.
* generate package with <tt>rake package</tt>. Your tarball will be under the pkg/
  directory, named as noosfero-${VERSION}.tar.gz
* test that the package contains everything that is needed: explode the tarball
  in a temporary directory, copy config/database.yml.sqlite3 to
  config/database.yml, and make <tt>rake db:migrate</tt> and <tt>rake test</tt>. If
  everything is ok, you are done. If not, maybe some files are not going into
  the tarball. See lib/tasks/package.rake, probably you'll need to change it.
* Go to the version's wiki topic and edit it to reflect the new reality.
* Attach the generated package to that topic. Before attaching calculate the md5 of the package (with mu5sum and paste the MD5 hash as comment in the attachment form)
* Download the attached and verify the MD5 hash
* create a svn tag for the released version with <tt>rake tag</tt>. See
  lib/tasks/svn.rake in case of any questions.
* IMMEDIATELY change the version in lib/noosfero.rb to the next version. (e.g.
  0.2.0 -> 0.3.0)
* update an eventual demonstration version that you run.
* write an announcement e-mail to the relevant maimling lists pointing to the release notes, and maybe to the demonstration version.

If you had any problem during these steps, you can do <tt>rake clobber_package</tt> to
completely delete the generated packages and start the process again.

== Working with translations

* Update translation files: <tt>rake updatepo</tt>. Then <tt>svn commit</tt> them.
* Send the PO files to the translators.
* Get the PO files back from translators, put in po/ under the correct language
  name (e.,g. po/pt_BR/) and <tt>svn commit</tt>.
* test translations: <tt>rake makemo</tt> and browse the application on the web.