Here are some tips if you want to hack or debug Merkaartor.
Tag templates are XML files under the ''Templates'' directory. See ''default.mat'' as a
reference. Basically a widget tag specifies a choice in the ''Properties'' dialog,
and value tags choices for the value. It's not pretty or easy to use.
Before you start hacking, drop an email to the list. I think it's worth adopting JOSM presets instead, as we gain a pretty exhaustive database and people will have an easier time switching between Merkaartor and JOSM, which is always good!
There is more information in the translations/README.md. However, if you just want to contribute to translations, either by translating an existing language or adding a new one, visit our Transifex page and start there. There are a few words on our web, http://merkaartor.be/p/docs/localization, together with a link to the Transifex page.
Rendering styles are stored in the ''Styles/'' directory, but they are not to be edited by hand. Use Merkaartor's style editor instead, and let it save for you.
If you want to add a new style, do so freely. Keep changes to existing files to a minimum, so the overall look, feel, and rendering speed won't change much.
I would be very happy if someone made a comprehensive style suited for editing POIs, yet easy to navigate.
Sanitizers can be enabled by the SANITIZE option:
qmake -r SANITIZE=1
qmake -r SANITIZE=2
qmake -r SANITIZE=custom_sanitizer
The option =1 enables the address and undefined sanitizers. The option =2 enables the thread sanitizer. Enything else will be just passed to the compiler, so you can specify your own. It might be useful to run a compile with Clang instead of GCC for different options/implementations.
It might complain about some stuff in other libraries (gdal, Qt), so keep in mind these are not our responsibilities for the most case. Usually all the bugs detected are severe and should be reported. Even running Merkaartor with a sanitizer enabled and reporting bugs is a huge benefit, though there is a severe performance hit involved.
You can compile Merkaartor with Clang, using standard Qt approach:
qmake -spec linux-clang
You might have noticed the strange naming convention for variables. They are often prefixed with a definite or indefinite article, like aLayer and theLayer. It's been in Merkaartor since the very beginning of the Git history.
The exact meaning in Merkaartor is still a bit cloudy, and I don't expect anyone to keep this notation in new code, but it might be a good idea in some cases. However, I will not accept commits that try to change this notation just for the sake of changing.
A possible representation was given by @PeterMortensen (see issue #184 on github for a bit more details)
One example was in the commercial C++ framework Think Class Library (TCL), bundled with the THINK C compiler. TCL was similar to Qt, for creating GUI-based applications, etc. This was in the early 1990s for MacOS (before both Mac OS X and PowerPC).
It used the definite or indefinite article prefix, the indefinite for parameter names of a function and the definite for scalar member variables (not class instances). It also used the "its" prefix for members that were class instances (this was before references in C++, so all access to class instances were through pointers). If I remember correctly, this was to indicate ownership (responsibility for destruction, etc.).
The TCL framework also had the convention of "I" for second-level initialisation of objects after creation (possibly due to limitations in the compiler support of C++ features - I don't remember).