Development

This page is about XBMC develop in general. Operating system specific information can be found on the following pages.

• XBMC for Linux development
• XBMC for Mac development
• [[XBMC for Windows|XBMC for Windows development]

Compiling XBMC

XBMC_for_Windows

XBMC programming and code formatting convention guidelines

Note! More specifics to come based on ongoing discussions, see Proposed code formatting conventions for XBMC

General guidelines

• Code documentation (DocBook, rst, or doxygen for the code documentation steps, preferably the latter, doxygen)
• Self-containment - XBMC should be as little dependent as possible on operating-system and third-party services/deamons/libraries
  • XBMC should for example contain all file-system and network-client (like samba) support built-into the XBMC package
• Modular design - independent modules made up by localized/isolated code libraries without dependencies
  • XBMC should still compile and run if a non-essencial module/library is disabled or removed
• Aim for the GUI/interface to run smoothly on a low spec computer (with less than 1Ghz Intel Pentium III 32-bit x86 processor)
  • 3D graphic controller (GPU) will always be required hardware for XBMC so try to utilize the GPU as much as possible
• Avoid harddisk trashing (excess read/write/erase cycles), so no harddrive paging, (utilize RAM memory intead).
• Fast load and boot times for end-user perception (other thing can still run/start in the background without the user knowledge)

User-friendliness is next to godlyness

One of Team-XBMC major ongoing goal have always been to make XBMC and its user interface even more intuitive and user-friendly for its end-users, based on the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy. We think that usability is very important for media players like XBMC. Many user interface deciscions are being made by developers who often have little experience in user interface design, in order to improve this, we try to listen to XBMC's end-users for how XBMC is actually being used and how we can improve the user experience. We also aim to do regular overhauls, improving existing features/functions, and scrapping outdated code and features/functions (as "to much stuff" can also be a bad thing).

XBMC as a whole must...

• Be easy to install, set up, and maintain, (so that the end-users do not get fed up with it and quit).
• Have an user interface simple and intuitive enough so that less geek-savvy people are not intimidated by it.
  • Make common usage easy, simple 'Human–Computer Interaction (HCI)', from the viewpoint of an ordinary user.
• Be able to play audio and video files that have been compressed using divx, xvid, etc. directly out-of-the-box
• Be able to and organize audio and video files in an easy and user-friendly way.
• Use standards and be consistant, (the music section can for example not use completely different controls from the video section)
• Perform actions in the GUI with as few 'clicks' as possible
• Require little to none non-GUI configuration (and all such non-GUI config should be via advancedsettings.xml)
  • There is still a little work to be done here, for example RSS-feeds settings need to moved to the GUI
• Look nice.

XBMC developers should always strive to

• Promote open source - XBMC is based on the ideas of FOSS (free open source software), licensed under the GPL and builds partly on other open source projects which we do our best to support. The GPL should be respected at all times. All code should be committed to the XBMC project’s SVN before any public binaries are released.
• Promote the sharing of knowledge and collaboration - Through the use of information sharing tools and practices XBMC is a collaborative environment.
• Understand that development is a team effort - Treating our users as co-developers has proven to be the most effective option for rapid development. Always strive to work as a team at all times. Actively promote discussion on new features and bug fixes, and respect others comments and criticisms with replies in a timely fashion.
• Apply the Law of Diminishing Return - The majority of the effort should be invested in implementing features which have the most benefit and widest general usage by the community.
• Try to make all code, feature, and functions to be platform agnostic - XBMC is a multi-platform software, thus any single platform specific features should be discussed with other team members before implemented. Major features should be developed in a separate branch or committed in small increments so that other members have the opportunity to review the code and comment on it during development.