Development of Frescobaldi
==========================

If you want to contribute to Frescobaldi, you can find here some information
about how the Frescobaldi code is organized.

frescobaldi.py

  the entry point. This small script is installed as BIN/frescobaldi and imports
  the rest of the python modules as soon as they are needed.

data/

  data files such as ui and desktop files

css/

  style files to style Frescobaldi or the LilyPond documentation browser,
  installed in SHARE/apps/frescobaldi/css

icons/

  this directory is verbatim installed into SHARE/apps/frescobaldi/icons

pics/

  PNG icons that are generated from lilypond source files

po/

  translations. Read README-translations for info about how to add a new
  translations to Frescobaldi.

doc/

  the docbook sources for the Frescobaldi User Guide

rumor/

  some support files for the Rumor plugin. (Rumor is an external program that
  translates MIDI input to LilyPond output, and it can be used by Frescobaldi.)

python/

  python modules and packages that are installed to SHARE/apps/frescobaldi/lib.

makedist.sh

  a small shell script that exports the source tree from a SVN working copy
  and creates a release tarball with LilyPond-generated icons and MO files
  prebuilt. The version is read from the toplevel CMakeLists.txt file.


Python directory structure
==========================

The python/ directory contains all python modules that comprise Frescobaldi.
There are three main packages:

ly/
  
  a collection of modules that interact with LilyPond and the .LY file format.
  No KDE-related modules.

kateshell/

  an editor shell around KatePart. No LilyPond-related code.

frescobaldi_app/

  all Frescobaldi-specific modules. The mainapp.py file contains the application
  core functionality, and subclasses most of the generic classes in kateshell/.


Python Coding guidelines
========================

Use ASCII or UTF-8 encoding for the Python source files and 4 spaces for indent.

Be lazy: try to load as few Python modules as possible from startup to display
of the mainwindow.

Remain compatible with Python 2.6

Port to Python3 will start as soon as PyKDE4 is ported to Python3.