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+# DEVELOPMENT GUIDELINES
+
+* workplace setup
+* makefile targets
+* release process
+
+## WORKPLACE SETUP
+
+Development can be done with a pure text editor and a terminal session.
+
+### VSCode setup
+
+Use python and mypy extensions for Visual Studio Code (from Microsoft).
+
+* Control-P: "ext list"
+  * look for "Python", "Pylance" (style checker), "Mypy Type Checker" (type checker)
+* Control-P: "ext install ms-python.mypy-type-checker"
+  * this one pulls the latest mypy from the visualstudio marketplace
+  * https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-python.mypy-type-checker
+
+The make targets are defaulting to tests with python3.6 but the mypy plugin
+for vscode requires atleast python3.8. All current Linux distros provide an
+additional package with a higher version number, e.g "zypper install python311".
+Be sure to also install "python311-mypy" or compile "pip3 install mypy". 
+Implant the paths to those tools into the workspace settings = `.vscode/settings.json`
+
+    {
+        "mypy-type-checker.reportingScope": "workspace",
+        "mypy-type-checker.interpreter": [
+                "/usr/bin/python3.11"
+        ],
+        "mypy-type-checker.path": [
+                "mypy-3.11"
+        ],
+        "mypy-type-checker.args": [
+                "--strict",
+                "--show-error-codes",
+                "--show-error-context",
+                "--no-warn-unused-ignores",
+                "--ignore-missing-imports",
+                "--exclude=build"
+        ],
+        "python.defaultInterpreterPath": "python3"
+    }
+
+The python files at the toplevel are not checked in vscode. I dont know why (yet).
+
+### Makefile setup
+
+Common distro packages are:
+* `zypper install python3 python3-pip` # atleast python3.6
+* `zypper install python3-wheel python3-twine`
+* `zypper install python3-coverage python3-unittest-xml-reporting`
+* `zypper install python3-mypy python3-mypy_extensions python3-typing_extensions`
+* `zypper install python3-autopep8`
+
+For ubuntu you can check the latest Github workflows under
+* `grep apt-get .github/workflows/*.yml`
+
+## Makefile targets
+
+### static code checking
+
+* `make type`
+* `make style`
+
+### testing targets
+
+There are a dozen `XX.tests.py` files in the project which are `unittest` testcases.
+You can run each seperately with a shortname, e.g. `make x` runs tabtotext.tests.py
+and `make x_9020` runs "test_9020" in that tests.py.
+
+* `make check` # runs all the XX.tests.py targets 
+* `make install` and `make uninstalls` # for updating a `~/.local/bin` setup
+
+### release targets
+
+* `make version`
+* `make build`
+
+## RELEASE PROCESS
+
+### steps
+* `make type`   # python mypy
+* `make style`  # python style
+* `make check`
+* `make version` # based on the current week+day
+* `make build` # default build
+* `make ins` 
+* `make uns`
+* `make xlsx` # special tabxlsx
+* `make insxlsx` 
+* `make unsxlsx`
+* `make coverage` 
+* update README.md with the result from coverage
+* `git push` # if necessary
+* wait for github workflows to be okay
+* prepare a tmp.changes.txt 
+* `git tag -F tmp.changes.txt v1.x` to the version in zziplib.spec
+* `git push --tags`
+* update the short description on github
+* `make xlsx` and executed the shown `twine upload` to pypi.org
+* `make build` and executed the shown `twine upload` to pypi.org
+
+## TODO
+
+* enhance cli
+