Lightfeather 3D Engine: Content / CVS

How to get Lightfeather

There are 4 ways to get Lightfeather, LFPE (Lightfeather physics engine, ODE integration with LF) and Feathered, the sceneeditor.
1.) Download a release version from this site here.
2.) Download a release version from sourceforge.
3.) Download the current version from our mercurial(hg) repository here.
4.) Use Mercurial (hg) to get the current version from our repository.
The difference between the release versions and the versions from the hg repository is that the
release versions have been tested a bit more and that they are known to be stable. Also, there is a
binardy release version for windows which contains an already compiled dll and the examples in
compiled, executable, form - so if you just want to take a look at the examples and tutorials
and happen to use windows, this might be the best version for you to download.

The advantage of the repository versions is that you get the newest features. The advantage
of using mercurial to get the version from the repository is that you can update easily and by
only downloading the differences to previous versions instead of having to re-download everything.
The repository version is not always guaranteed to work, but usually it works just fine, since we
usually make sure to only commit working stuff. Also, if you are using mercurial to get the
repository version, you can easily switch back to the previous (known working) version.

How to use mercurial to get Lightfeather
This will only detail the process for Lightfeather. Getting LFPE or Feathered is the same, the repository names are lfpe and lf_editor, respectively.

Since not everyone has heard of distributed scm software and specifically mercurial, heres a small
"how to install and configure mercurial so it works with the Lightfeather public repository".

You can find out more about it at http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/wiki/ .

First, download and install mercurial. We recommend using version 1.0 since its stable and is known to work.

On windows edit the file mercurial.ini in the directory where you have installed mercurial and uncomment the line "** = cleverencode:" in [encode] and line "** = cleverdecode:" in [decode] sections. This has to be done before the initial cloning of the Lightfeather repository, otherwise you will end up with wrong line-endings!!!

The rest of this section is split into one part for users of Lightfeather and another one for Lightfeather
developers.

Lightfeather users:
To download the main repository from the Lightfeather server do the following:
execute
hg clone http://anonymous:guest@lightfeather.de/cgi-bin/hg/lightfeather [local dirname]
[local dirname] is the name the lightfeather directory should have on your harddisk.

To get the changes since you last updated or cloned from the server repository do:
hg pull
hg update
That will bring your local version of the Lightfeather project to the same state as the
version in the repository on the server.

These three commands should be all you ever need.

Lightfeather-developers:
After downloading and installing do the following:
On Linux edit (or create, if it doesnt exist) the file ~/.hgrc .
add the following two lines:
[ui]
username=[username]
where [username] is the old cvs-username.

On windows find (or create) the file
C:\documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Mercurial.ini where [USERNAME] is your windows username, NOT the one used in cvs.
Add the following two lines:
[ui]
username=[username]
where [username] is the old cvs-username.

To check if the changes where successful, you can now try
hg showconfig. It should list the change(s) you have done.

To download the main repository from the Lightfeather server do the following:
execute
hg clone https://[username]:[password]@lightfeather.de/cgi-bin/hg/lightfeather [local dirname]
[username] is the Username you chose for working on LF or in case you had access to the old CVS
repository, it is your old CVS username.
[password] is the password you have chosen, or in case you had access to the old CVS
repository, it is the old CVS password.
[local dirname] is the name the lightfeather directory should have on your harddisk.
Two things are important here:
First, use https, otherwise you wont be able to push changes back to the server repository.
Second, in earlier versions than 1.0, if you added your password here, it was be visible everytime you push or pull changes from/to the repository. The alternative is to not use the password but then you will be prompted for it with every push and pull. This has been fixed with version 1.0 of mercurial.

To update from the server repository use
hg pull
hg update
to update your local version to match the one on the server.

If you have local changes that need to be merged, mercurial will notify you when you issue
the hg update command, that you need to do a merge. In that case do
hg merge
and follow any further instructions mercurial might give you.

To push updates to the server, after you have committed them to your local repository, a simple
hg push
is sufficient.

This, of course also means that if you clone locally, and then push, it will push to your main local copy you cloned from the server.

There is also a test-project named hgtest for developers to play around with mercurial and to learn using it.