Offering to work on build and CI for RB-2.6

Hi all. I’ve used node compositors for years in a color and aerial
cinematography workflow, and I write C++/Qt for a living. I’d like to put
real hours into Natron, starting with the least interesting part of it.

My read from the outside is that the build is the bottleneck. CONTRIBUTING
rates building locally as harder than fixing a bug, Travis sits disabled in
the tree, and the README badges point at CI that hasn’t run in years.
Nothing else moves until that’s sorted.

What I’m proposing, in order. Build RB-2.6 on Windows and Linux and correct
the INSTALL docs wherever they’re wrong. Stand up GitHub Actions with a
build matrix covering Linux, Windows, and macOS. Then, if the maintainers
want it, cut a tag from the fixes that have accumulated on RB-2.6 since
2.5.0.

I’m not promising a Qt6 port. I want to understand the Shiboken situation
before anyone says that word out loud. My hours are evenings and weekends,
so I’d rather commit to a narrow scope and finish it than announce
something large and stall.

One thing I can’t answer from the repo: is CMakeLists.txt meant to replace
Project.pro, or was it an experiment that stalled? That changes the order
of everything above.

Who’s still reviewing pull requests, and which branch do you want them
targeted at?

@rodlie, @devernay,
I’ve just had a chat with Archon on the Natron Discord about the project’s status, and they’re keen on helping with the development.
I hope you two will help them with the source code, first steps, roadmap, etc. or development hurdles. I’ve already familiarized them with the most relevant things.

Archon,
To get up to speed with the community, you should also check the following forum threads:

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I’m available (I read GitHub notifications), but not active anymore. I got other projects to care about.

There is a lot of things that needs fixes in Natron, the build stuff is only one part.

  • Updating the Linux build is trivial(ish), just bump to Qt5 (I have done so in other projects that uses more or less the same depends)
  • Windows: get rid of MSYS! it’s a PITA and the root to several issues on Windows. Get Natron working on MSVC and use vcpkg to manage the depends (outside of Qt).

The CMake stuff is “safe” on Linux at least, I use(d) it to build/develop Natron RB-2.6.

Note: I don’t get notifications from pixls (since 2020!) so don’t expect (quick) replies.

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