sourcetrail is a cross-platform source code explorer for Windows, macOS and Linux that performs static analysis on C, C ++, Java and Python source code and navigate through the collected information within a user interface that combines graphic display and code display.
The font type tool, for example, integrates with IDEs like Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm or editors like Atom, Sublime Text and Visual Studio Code. Here then the desired changes must be made.
For those who discover it for the first time, SourceTrail can be very useful to start with a code base created by another developer. Specifically, since the tool allows you to dive into an existing code base and explore its general structure. SourceTrail has an API for adding new programming languages as extensions.
“Software developers are mainly focused on writing source code. But often, they end up spending more time reading to understand what is going on in an existing codebase.
At the same time, most of the tools used are designed for efficient code writing and not for reading. That is why we developed SourceTrail. It helps you understand all the dependencies in your source code so that you don't have to worry about breaking the whole system when you touch an existing code, "says the development team.
Now SourceTrail will be free and open source
Few ago, the news was released that the tool has changed from being paid to open source since previously, it was a commercial tool for developers of the Austrian company Coati Software, which, however, it was used for non-commercial projects for free.
Acquisition of SourceTrail will no longer be through a commercial license:
“We decided to go for the GNU General Public License because it is a viral license that guarantees that any changes or improvements to Sourcetrail will remain free software. Today we are proud to announce that the five-year-old product is now freely available to the public on GitHub, "writes the development team.
The manufacturer now indirectly acknowledges that it has failed to monetize the software Enough, hence the move towards open source, which also aims to achieve a wider dissemination of the source code.
Well, not all developers saw the value of the tool, making it difficult to sell, so now Coati seeks contributions to via patreon to fund Sourcetrail maintenance and support.
Since those responsible for the tool comment that they need at least $ 1,500 per month to maintain the open source repository and continue to release updates.
In addition to the fact that $ 2500 per month will be needed to manage communication aspects. It will take $ 19,000 per month to continue working on programming language support. UI development is estimated at $ 27,000 per month. It is through the Patreon crowdfunding platform that the project leaders intend to work towards these goals.
Download and install Sourcetrail on Linux
Finally, for those interested in trying this tool, You can download the Sourcetrail.tar.gz file, which you can get from the following link.
Or by executing the following command in a terminal:
32 bit:
wget https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/releases/download/2019.4.61/Sourcetrail_2019_4_61_Linux_32bit.tar.gz
64 bit:
wget https://github.com/CoatiSoftware/Sourcetrail/releases/download/2019.4.61/Sourcetrail_2019_4_61_Linux_64bit.tar.gz
Done the download they should unzip the package with:
tar -xzvf Sourcetrail_2019_4_61_Linux_32bit.tar.gz tar -xzvf Sourcetrail_2019_4_61_Linux_64bit.tar.gz
We enter the directory and let's run the Sourcetrail.sh file:
sudo sh Sourcetrail.sh
This will create a folder "~ / .config / sourcetrail" on the first run, this is the folder for the Sourcetrail configuration.
To install Sourcetrail, now we are going to run the install.sh script
sudo sh install.sh
Once the installation is done, they must take into account the path of the folder that contains the files necessary for the execution of Sourcetrail. The location is as follows:
~ /.config/sourcetrail
Finally you can obtain more information in its documentation at the following link.