The first thing to do, of course, is to download Feelin's packages and install them. You should start with the common package. As a developer, you'll be particularly interested in the C support files (includes and libraries), the demos' sources and maybe the dictionaries for CubicIDE.
You can always get the latest version of the packages from the download page (and maybe some alphas too). Since Feelin is an open-source project, you can also download its sources and maybe become a brilliant and sweet contributor.
Now comes the thrilling part of the compiling process. You should proceed with caution, a lot of people have been injured during Feelin' development. Sometimes it's hard to be a geek, even a nice looking one ;-)
Because Feelin is portable across AmigaOS3 friends (OS4/MOS/AROS), we have taken great care of the compiling process, or at least we've tried to :-D The various makefiles used to compile the classes, the shared library, the demos, the tools and the linkable objects, use a same and unique header file, which define all the compiling and linking options. The first thing you might want to do is set this magic header to match your machine and system.
The makefile headers are located in /Feelin/_make. Make sure to overwrite the 'makefile-header' file to match your machine and system. e.g. A WinUAE user, developing using CubicIDE should copy the 'makefile-header.68k.gcc' file over 'makefile-header'. After this huge effort, all you have to do is type 'make' to compile anything. Note though that there is currently no one-great-makefile-to-compile-them-all.
If you feel lucky and want to mess with the roots, you might want to compile your very own version of Feelin. Luckily, that won't big much of a problem. Feelin's sources are located in /Feelin/sources/, to compile them all, just type 'make', et voilà. Three days later you'll have the shared library and its classes compiled and ready to serve. That's what will do with the demos.
Although most demos are now in XML format, there's still a lot of fun for C users. But not much though :-P Type 'make' and the demos should all be compiled in less time than it takes to order an EFIKA. But wait ! Don't launch anything yet, or you'll be very disappointed. Well, sad but true, there is no default style in Feelin, everything must/can/should be defined using stylesheets. If you launch a demo now, without a nice global stylesheet defined, you'll be facing some design-desaster worst then the greatest days of ReAction and MUI altogether.
Head back to the Feelin root. And again type 'make'. The 'Setup' and 'Prefs' programs should now be compiled. It's about time we finally play with Feelin !
The first two programs available at Feelin's root are the setup and preference programs.
'Setup' is the first program the user should launch. With a nice interface, the user will be guided in the process of choosing a stylesheet to start with and install Feelin. Well, Feelin is not exactly installed because not a single file is copied, but your user-startup will be edited for sure, unless you chose not to during the setup process, in which case everything will be back to normal after a reboot.
The Prefs program can be used to modify every single pixel of Feelin. It's a source of great joy, but sadly it has been disabled since the stylesheet introduction :-( I know, that's too bad, but someday it'll be back again and we'll all be very happy and grateful.
Anyway, configuration is boring, let's create our first program instead !