how to install OfflineIMAP from git

[Nicolas Sebrecht]

[ Please, dont cull the cc list. ]

On Wed, May 04, 2011 at 01:14:49PM +0200, Antoine Levitt wrote:
> 04/05/11 12:53, Johannes Kastl
> > On 4/24/11 6:48 PM Nicolas Sebrecht wrote:

> >> OfflineIMAP v6.3.3 is out.
> >
> > Sorry if this may be a stupid question, but I am new to using git, and
> > new to using offlineimap.

This isn't a dump question at all.

> > Is there any documentation on the different git branches available at
> > <https://github.com/nicolas33/offlineimap>? Which branch is used for
> > what?

I'll add more documentation about that. This is a very common question.
Basically:

	- maint: maintenance branch for our long-lived maintained (big fixes) release
	- master: last release + important bug fixes
	- next: what should be in the coming release (a tester and developer branch)
	- pu: the "proposed updates" branch for patches not ready for inclusion

The following patch updates the documentation on how to install OfflineIMAP from
sources (usefull since tarballs aren't provided anymore).

> Yes, I'd like to know this too. In particular, which branch can I use to
> get the idle code?

As Sebastian said, the IDLE code is NOT ready, yet. I cannot even say when it
will be in mainline.

>                    I tried pu, but it crashed with
> 
>   File "/home/antoine/offlineimap/offlineimap/imapserver.py", line 22, in
>   <module>
>     from offlineimap.accounts import syncfolder
> ImportError: cannot import name syncfolder

Do NOT use pu content. It's for developers and advanced testers only. It _can't_
run safely... if it run.

I realize now that even our most active developer isn't sure how to extract
usefull stuff from the pu branch. :-)
I'll add git documentation for developers, too.

 [PATCH] INSTALL: explain how to install offlineimap using git


Find bellow an extract from the updated installation process:

	System-Wide Installation, From source
	=====================================
	
	Get your own copy of the official git repository at `OfflineIMAP`_::
	
	  git clone git://github.com/nicolas33/offlineimap.git
	
	This will download all the sources with history. By default, git set up the
	local master branch up which is most likely what you want. If not, you can
	checkout a particular release::
	
	  cd offlineimap
	  git checkout -b local_version v6.3.3
	
	The latter creates a local branch called "local_version" of the v6.3.3 release.
	
	Then run these commands, to build the python package::
	
	  make clean
	  make
	
	Finally, install the program (as root)::
	
	  python setup.py install
	
	Next, proceed to below.  You will type offlineimap to invoke the program.
	
	Single-Account Installation
	===========================
	
	Download the git repository as described above. Instead of installing the
	program as root, you type `./offlineimap.py`; there is no installation step
	necessary.