Cxbx-Reloaded is developed in C++ using Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 Community.

Since Cxbx-Reloaded launches another process instance of itself for emulation, debugging in Visual Studio doesn't work out of the box.

Follow the developer debugging guide to get started.

This is a step-by-step guide to keep your forked copy of Cxbx-Reloaded updated, to create a branch for your work and to send a PR.

If you want more information about git commands, you can read this free book.

You have to follow these steps only the first time you fork Cxbx-Reloaded:

1. Fork mainline Cxbx-Reloaded repository on GitHub by clicking the "Fork" button (upper-right) and clone it to a local folder.
2. Open a git shell in the root folder of your cloned repository and run this command: git remote add upstream https://github.com/Cxbx-Reloaded/Cxbx-Reloaded.git
3. Run git remote -v. If you see two "origin" and two "upstream"; Congratulations, you have completed the first-time setup!

You have to follow these steps anytime you want to update your forked Cxbx-Reloaded repository:

1. Open a git shell in the root folder of your cloned repository and run these commands:
   1. git fetch upstream
   2. git checkout master
2. Then run git rebase -i upstream/master and check if every commit looks good.
3. You may need to run git push origin master --force to update your repository on GitHub.

You must keep the master branch of your forked repository clean, and instead create a new branch for every contribution you want to send.

Before creating a branch, MAKE SURE YOUR FORK IS UP-TO-DATE!

Change "name_of_new_branch" to something meaningful like "fixing-issue-X".

1. Create a branch using this command: git checkout -b name_of_new_branch
2. Switch to your new branch with: git checkout name_of_new_branch
3. Push your new branch on GitHub running: git push origin name_of_new_branch
4. Now do your work. Once done send a Pull Request directly from GitHub (go to your branch and click "Pull Request")
5. When your work is merged in mainline, you can safely remove your branch by typing:
   1. git checkout master
   2. git branch -d name_of_new_branch
   3. git push origin :name_of_new_branch