Be respectful and constructive – Everyone starts somewhere, and we value all contributions, whether big or small. Keep discussions friendly and helpful.
Clear and concise communication – When reporting issues or submitting code, provide useful details that make it easy for others to understand and help.
Follow the coding style – Consistency is key. Try to adhere to existing conventions in the project to keep the codebase clean and maintainable.
Write meaningful commit messages – A good commit message helps others understand why a change was made, not just what changed.
Be open to feedback – Code reviews aren’t about criticism; they’re about making the project stronger. Let’s help each other improve!
Keep it fun! – At the end of the day, we’re all here to learn, build cool things, and collaborate. Let’s make this a positive space for everyone.

Necessary Tools

Now that we’ve got that covered, let’s dive in! To start developing, you’ll need a few extra tools:

Git - Any Git client works, but we recommend GitHub Desktop
Visual Studio Code - We love this code editor
Anaconda - Helps with Python environments, you will need at least version 4.12.0
CMake - Helps building web examples, and desktop versions. You will need at least version 3.24
emscripten - This builds the web examples. You will need at least version 3.1.40
Doxygen - This builds the whole html documentation. You will need at least version 1.9.5

Submodules

In the root folder open a Git prompt and type the following:

git submodule update
cd extras
cd Commander-API
git pull
git checkout v3.0.0

Setting Up the Project Build & Documentation

Translating and documenting this project is no small task, so we’ve automated a lot of it using the build.py script. To make sure it runs smoothly, you'll need a Python environment with all the required libraries installed.

Good news: we’ve already gathered everything you need in a single list! All you have to do is open an Anaconda Prompt in the project’s root directory and run the following command:

conda env create --file python_env.yml

If everything goes well, this will set up all the necessary Python libraries for you.

Next, in Visual Studio Code’s terminal, you need to activate the shellminator environment to start using it:

conda activate shellminator

python build.py -t 'clean web'

Here’s the translated and beginner-friendly version of your text:

How to Use build.py

To use build.py, you need to specify a target using the -t or --target option:

clean – Deletes previous builds to ensure a fresh start.
web – Compiles all examples using Emscripten, making them runnable in a web browser.
examples – Compiles all examples for the current platform (PC).
test – Meant for unit testing in the future, but it’s not functional yet!

Generating Example Code

Before you can compile the examples, their source code needs to be generated for the target platform. This is handled automatically by the exampleGenerator.py script. Run the following command:

python exampleGenerator.py

Compiling Examples for PC

For example, if you want to compile all examples for PC, you can do it like this:

python exampleGenerator.py
python build.py -t 'clean examples'
.\build\001_basic.exe

Useful Tips for Building

You don’t need to run clean before every build—doing so will slow things down significantly. Even though we compile on powerful machines, building all web examples still takes around 15 minutes. Use clean for the first build since it’s necessary, but after that, you can skip it. Example:

python build.py -t 'web'
If you don’t want to compile everything, you can temporarily comment out unnecessary targets at the end of the CMakeLists.txt file using the # character.
If you switch platforms, you must run clean.

Generating Documentation

Open the Doxyfile using the Doxygen GUI and generate the documentation by clicking Run.
Then, compile the examples for the WebAssembly platform using:

python build.py -t 'clean web'
Finally, locally host the documentation website using:

python ..\ShellminatorDocs\run_server.py

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