Dev_notes.md

Notes to developers

This guide describes how to contribute to this project (and not just this PS Vita HomeBrew) with the least amount of agony.

• Notes to developers
  • 1. Beginning
    • 1.1 Literature
    • 1.2 Communities
    • 1.3 Tools for development
  • 2. Notes on the development of the VitaOxiPad
    • 2.1 General
    • 2.2 Client (./client)
    • 2.3 Server (./server)

1. Beginning

1.1 Literature

• Getting Started with PSVita Homebrew Development;
• Fixing linking issues with VitaSDK;
• VitaSDK - Development tools for PS Vita;
• VitaSDK API
• All about PS Vita hardware;
• HENkaku 変革 project;
• taiHEN Quick Start;
• Using the VitaSDK/DolceSDK with Visual Studio Code.

1.2 Communities

• Vita Nuova Discord server;
• HENkaku Discord server.

1.3 Tools for development

• Vitadev Package manager;
• A well-running Vitacompanion fork;
• Python3 vita-parse-core to retrieve information from the PS Vita error dump;
• Various development tools PSVita-RE-tools, including PrincessLog for debug.

2. Notes on the development of the VitaOxiPad

2.1 General

• Use automatic code formatting for alignment and indentation (VSCode, Pre-Commit, etc).

2.2 Client (./client)

Cheat sheets:

• Compile and run: cargo build --release --bin cli && ./target/release/cli $VITA_IP;
• Clean cargo packages: cargo clean;
• Upgrade all cargo dependencies: cargo install cargo-edit and cargo upgrade.

Notes:

• To check the data sent to uinput it is convenient to use evtest with evtest-qt.

2.3 Server (./server)

Cheat sheets:

• Generate build folder: cmake -S server -B build;
• Compile: cmake --build build -j;
• Send to PS Vita: cmake --build build --target send;
• Download and parse error dump: export PARSECOREPATH=/vita-parse-core/main.py and cmake --build build --target dump.

Notes:

• If you change the code in a kernel module, update its version. This will help inform users after the update that they should reboot, as the old module may still be in memory;
• If you modify Cmake instructions, don't be lazy to do a complete cleanup of the project (for the lazy, you can just delete the build folder). This will help you avoid a lot of non-obvious problems;
• cmake --build build -j && cmake --build build --target send a quick way to send changes to the PS Vita. Just don't forget to specify the VITA_IP variable before generating build instructions via cmake -S server -B build. The same is true for PARSECOREPATH;
• Keep in mind that cmake --build build --target send will only send the module and eboot executable files.