How To Open, Debug & Compile The IDE

The Gambas IDE is written in Gambas. So the IDE source project can be loaded into the IDE for editing.

  • Be sure you already have Gambas IDE installed.

  • Download a Gambas source code version from gitlab...

Stable Version https://gitlab.com/gambas/gambas/-/archive/stable/gambas-stable.zip

Development Version https://gitlab.com/gambas/gambas/-/archive/master/gambas-master.zip

  • Run your already installed Gambas IDE.

  • Lets assume you have un-archived the source into a folder called ~/gambas-source. so Open Project ~/gambas-source/app/src/gambas3

  • Now you have the gambas IDE project loaded in the gambas IDE.

  • Press the Start Button

  • You now see another Gambas IDE is running through the existing Gambas. You can open projects as normal ...

  • Close the running projects.

  • Modify something in the IDE source code. (Maybe add some debugging messages)

  • Save the project and compile the exe using the "make executable" option.

~/gambas-source/app/src/gambas3/gambas3.gambas will have been created and you can use this instead of the installed version.

Or you can copy the new executable to /usr/bin/gambas3.gambas and overwrite the installed version.

Warning

The IDE is a VERY complicated system and you can break your gambas by modifying code.

Be aware of this if you report bugs, make sure the bugs exist in the non modified gambas before reporting them.