Build instructions are not build instructions

[mmuman]

Operating System Info

Other

Other OS

Haiku

OBS Studio Version

Git

OBS Studio Version (Other)

No response

OBS Studio Log URL

N/A

OBS Studio Crash Log URL

No response

Expected Behavior

The "Build instructions" link in the README would point to actual build instructions with the list of commands to compile a binary yourself (cmake .. && foo or whatever), and the list of required dependencies.

Current Behavior

The "Build instructions" link in the README points to an "Install instructions" page that shows how to install pre-built packages for a variety of Operating Systems, but not how to actually compile it yourself, in the case for example the OS you run is not listed on the page, as is the case here.

Even the Developer wiki's "Build instructions" link points to the same page.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Open the README.md file
2. Look for "Build instructions"
3. The link provided goes to a "Install instructions" page.

Anything else we should know?

No response

[kkartaltepe]

This is preferable to users asking how to install obs via cmake .. && foo. If you read the other table of contents you can find what you are looking for.

[Fenrirthviti]

The more practical reason here is that the "Install Instructions" page used to have both installation and build instructions on it in a massive monolithic wiki page. We split it off as it made more sense for things to be on their own pages, but there's a host of legacy links that pointed to that specific wiki page (since it was where the build directions were for years), so we opted to put the quick links to the actual build directions at the top and leave the legacy links in place to avoid breaking things.

EDIT: As those links are kind of scattered about the codebase and other documentation, I would confirm that I'm not opposed to changing them, but we opted at the time instead of trying to search for and replace all links we'd just update them as it made sense to and the new pages were ready for it. As with many documentation-related things, we got distracted and never got around to it. PRs welcome to update the links as they're found, IMO.

[mmuman]

Well I finally had to follow "Developer/API docs" then find the other link there…

At least please rename "Build Instruction" on the README as they clearly aren't.

[Fenrirthviti]

The readme points to the install instructions wiki page, the absolute very first thing on the page under the table of contents being the links to the various build directions. See screenshot:

We included the links in the install instructions page, because there is no single "build directions" page. You're expected to click the link that matches your operating system, and creating yet another landing page is a waste of time.

[mmuman]

Hmm… I guess that was too obvious then. 😅