Environment and development tools

Every integrated development environment can be used. However, this is a list of tools highly recommanded to use. They are all famous and a good help as they are featurful and of high quality. They are used by most main Dolibarr developers. Above all, they are all free and Opensource.

Computer.png For every developer

This is the recommended main tools but every tool compliant to Web, PHP, Mysql and Web standards can be used.

An AMP server

  • Apache, Mysql and PHP

For Linux: Those 3 products are available in all Linux distribution by default.

For Windows: Install WampServer 2 (Mysql database, Apache and PHP in an all in one package). This WAMP server offers MySql+Apache+PHP, with possibility to change version of any of this component with a simple click.

Firefox and plugins

  • Firefox 3.0 with plugins:
    • HTML Validator,
    • Phplangeditor and Dictionnaries of any languages you plan to translate,
    • Firebug + Firecookie,
    • Cert Viewer Plus if you plan to make tests with HTTPS,
    • FoxyProxy if you want to switch quickly on proxy tools (WebScarab),
    • User Agent Switcher to simulate usage of smartphones.

You can download this on web site http://www.firefox.com

SquirrelSQL

  • SquirrelSQL for database administration

You can download it at http://squirrel-sql.sf.net

Eclipse and plugins

Install Eclipse

We recommend to use the following package of Eclipse: https://eclipse.org/pdt/

Also any version available on Eclipse we site is possible.

Install plugin Eclipse for PHP: PDT.

If you installed Eclipse version defined previously, all you have to do is using process Help -> Install new software -> Add -> Archive to add module:

https://download.eclipse.org/releases/xxx - xxx = version

Or from the GUI of any Eclipse =>Install New Software =>Work With Kepler => Wait until list display =>General Purpose Tools Check PHP development tools (PDT)=>Install

Setup Eclipse to get CVS version

Once Eclipse is installed, you can connect to CVS repository to get last development version.

  • Create a new project: File >> New >> Projects then select "Project from CVS" and "Next"
  • Select "Create a new repository location" then "Next"
  • Fill the windows like this:
    • Host : cvs.savannah.nongnu.org
    • Repository path : /cvsroot/dolibarr
    • User : anonymous
    • Password : (laisser vide)
    • Connection type : pserver
    • Use default port
  • Then fill the field Use specified module name : dolibarr
  • Choose the name of project on you computer :
    • Check out as a projet in the workspace
    • Project Name : dolibarr
    • Checkout subfolders
  • Then, keep default path of workspace and click "Next"
  • Then, select the branch to load
    • HEAD is development version
    • Versions 2.6, 2.6, etc., are into Branches
  • Click "Finish"

Files should be download on your hard disk.

Then to update your local version, you must switch to "Team Synchronizing" to use the feature "Synchronize CVS", this will download latest versions on your hard disk. Only remotely modified files will be downloaded again.

Eclipsephp.jpg Optional

If you manage other projects with SVN

  • Install Eclipse plugin for SVN: SubClipse

For this, use the Find And Install process and add the SVN update URL:

http://subclipse.tigris.org/install.html

or

  • Install Eclispe plugin for SVN: Subversive
http://community.polarion.com/projects/subversive/download/eclipse/2.0/ganymede-site/ - [required] Subversive SVN Connectors
http://community.polarion.com/projects/subversive/download/integrations/ganymede-site/ - [optional] Subversive Integrations

If you want to make Perl scripts

  • Install the Eclipse plugin for Perl: EPIC

For this, use the Find And Install process and add the update URL: http://e-p-i-c.sourceforge.net/updates

If you want to develop modules with the UML2Dolibarr generator

A method to generate code of a module from UML is currently on work. More information on page Building a module using MDA. To use it, you must install the following components (If you install the previously recommanded version of Eclipse, all of this is already done):

  • Install Acceleo 2.2.1+

For this, user menu Find And Install and add update URL: http://www.acceleo.org/update/

  • Install UML2Dolibarr

For this, get the procject with command:

svn checkout svn://svn.forge.objectweb.org/svnroot/acceleo/trunk/modules/community/uml21/dolibarr/trunk/

and import it into Eclipse.

If you are using Windows

  • Notepad++ (for those which can't stand java or using a computer too old for Eclipse).
  • WinMerge (to compare files and directories)
  • CygWin (to have the "patch" command and the command line CVS if you prefer command lines interface)

If you want to make step by step debugging or tunning (XDebug)

  • To add global tuning information for pages on your browser status bar, add environment variable DOL_TUNING to 1 into Apache. For this, just add the following line into your apache.conf:
SetEnv DOL_TUNING 1

Then, check that your browser does not have options to block changing of status bar by javascript.

  • Install XDebug.

With Ubuntu: install package php-xdebug

With WampServer/Windows: Download dll file on http://www.xdebug.org and to store in directory ext of php. Then enable plugin.

  • Modify php.ini file (or xdebug.ini) to add parameters:
 [xdebug]
 xdebug.remote_enable=on
 xdebug.remote_handle=dbgp
 xdebug.remote_host=localhost
 xdebug.remote_port=9000
 xdebug.profiler_enable=1
 xdebug.show_local_vars=off
 xdebug.profiler_output_dir=c:/temp
 xdebug.profiler_append=0
  • Then to analyze files generated by XDebug profiling, you can install KCacheGrind (Linux) or WinCacheGrind (Windows).

To develop or use PHPUnit test

From Eclipse

You can also optionnally install The PHP Tools integration for Eclipse:

http://www.phpsrc.org/eclipse/pti/

If you do so, menu to launch PHPUnit tests are available in your Eclipse menu. If not, you must install and run PHPUnit manually from command line.

From Command Line

Instal PHPUnit

  • Download a release archive from http://pear.phpunit.de/get/ and extract it to a directory that is listed in the include_path of your php.ini configuration file.
  • Prepare the phpunit script:
    • For Linux: Rename the phpunit.php script to phpunit and replace the @php_bin@ string in it with the path to your PHP command-line interpreter (usually /usr/bin/php).
    • For Windows: Replace the @php_bin@ string in file phpunit.bat with the path of your PHP command-line interpreter and @bin_dir@ string with the path of the PHPunit directory.
    • Edit your Path to inclulde PHPunit directory
    • Make script runnable (chmod +x phpunit on Linux).
  • Prepare the PHPUnit/Util/PHP.php script:
    • Replace the @php_bin@ string if it exists in file it with the path to your PHP command-line interpreter (usually /usr/bin/php).
  • Module xdebug can also be required if you plan to make reporting of test code covering.

Execute PHPUnit tests

  • Go into directory /test of CVS version. Read file README to know the process to execute a unit test campaign.

CVS Setup

If you are an official developer with a write CVS access, add into your Eclipse setup a CVS entry.

  • :ext:yourlogin@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/dolibarr for main Dolibarr project.
  • :ext:yourlogin@cvs.savannah.nongnu.org:/cvsroot/dolibarrmod for secondary external modules.

Otherwise, you must get sources from tarball available on Dolibarr web site ( http://www.dolibarr.org ) in download area.