+# Swift - An elegant, secure, adaptable and intuitive XMPP Client

+

+__NOTE: Please download any releases from https://swift.im/releases.html, or as a Git checkout. The tarballs provided by GitHub will not build correctly.__

+

+## Quick Start

+Simply run `./scons Swift` on Linux, or `./scons Swift qt=/Users/username/Qt_installation_path/Qt/5.4.2/5.4/clang_64` on Mac OS X or `scons.bat Swift qt=C:\path\to\qt` on Windows to build Swift.

+

+This document only covers the general structure, project dependencies and building the Swift GUI application.

+More detailed information on building components, development, testing and packaging can be found in DEVELOPMENT.md.

+

+## Components

+* Swiften: A cross-platform C++ XMPP library.

+* Swift: A Qt-based cross-platform desktop GUI client based on Swiften.

+* Sluift: A XMPP scripting environment based on Lua and Swiften.

+* Limber: A XMPP proxy server proxying zero-configuration (XEP-0174) to a

+connected XMPP client.

+* Slimber: Qt and Cocoa frontends for Limber.

+* SwiftTools: A collection of utilities for Swift.

+

+## Supported Platforms

+Swift is known to work on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other Unix-like systems. However, we do not test the whole range of operating systems, especailly the huge amount of Linux and Unix-like systems.

+Swiften further has support for Android and iOS.

+

+Platforms we officially test our releases on are listed below. We only test on default configurations and default desktops environments on Linux distributions.

+

+* Swift

+ * Windows 7 to Windows 10

+ * Mac OS X 10.10 and Mac OS X 10.11

+ * Ubuntu 14.04 ( Trusty Tahr ) and Ubuntu 16.04 ( Xenial Xerus )

+ * Debian 8 ( jessie )

+

+## External Dependencies

+The Swift repository includes some third party dependencies in the 3rdParty directory

+to easy development. Third party dependencies not included are listed below:

+

+* OpenSSL is required when building Swiften on Linux or Android

+* Qt 5 is required by Swift; **Qt up to version Qt 5.5 is supported**

+* Python (2.5 <= version < 3)

+

+## General Build Instructions

+The Swift projects use the SCons build system for build configuration and Build

+execution. SCons is one of the included third party dependencies.

+

+To build all Swift components simply run SCons. On Mac OS X and Linux you run the `./scons` command. On Windows you run the `scons.bat` command in a Visual Studio developer shell.

+

+On multi-processor systems, i.e. most desktop and server machines, you can use the `-j NUMBER_OF_PARALLEL_TASKS` flag, or pass the `max_jobs=1` to the `scons` command to speed up build time. The `max_jobs=1` argument will set the number of parallel tasks to the number of CPU cores available. Note that each parallel task increases the memory requirements for the overall build process.

+

+## Platform Specific Instructions

+### Mac OS X

+#### Prerequisites

+- XCode (C++ 11 compiler) or Clang

+- Qt 5: The binary release of Qt provided on https://www.qt.io/download-open-source/ works just fine.

+

+#### Building Swift

+

+After installing Qt, simply run `./scons qt=/Users/username/Qt_installation_path/Qt/5.4.2/5.4/clang_64 Swift` to build Swift. Afterwards you can find a runnable app bundle at `Swift/QtUI/Swift.app`.

+

+### Windows

+#### Prerequisites

+- Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 Express or later (C++11)

+- Windows SDK

+- Python (2.5 <= version < 3)

+- Qt Open Source Edition

+

+A binary release of Qt can be obtained from https://www.qt.io/download-open-source/. Make sure it matches the Visual Studio version you have installed.

+

+#### Building Swift

+

+From the 'Visual C++' 'Programs' group, launch the Visual C++ command prompt, go to your checked out Swift directory and run `scons.bat qt=C:\path\to\qt Swift` to build Swift.

+

+To start Swift, simply change to `Swift/QtUI` and run `Swift.exe`.

+

+### Unix / Linux

+#### Prerequisites

+On Linux Swift mainly depends on Qt and OpenSSL.

+To install all required dependencies take a look at `./BuildTools/InstallSwiftDependencies.sh`. It is a script that supports various Linux distributions and will install the required system packages for building and running Swift.

+

+On Unix/Linux SCons will use `pkg-config` to determine the compiler and linker flags for Qt 5.

+

+Note: The Qt that comes with your Linux distribution might not be up to date and may have issues with some desktop environments.

+

+#### Building Swift

+To build Swift, simply open a terminal, go to the project root and run `./scons Swift`. Afterwards you can start Swift by running `./Swift/QtUI/swift-im`.

+

+#### Installing Swift

+To install Swift on the system (e.g. in the `/usr/local` directory), run `./scons SWIFT_INSTALLDIR=/usr/local /usr/local` in the Swift project folder.