FreeHealth EHR is written in C++/Qt5. In order to build one of the applications, you need to install and configure the Qt libraries.

FreeHealth requires Qt 5.7 or higher.

FreeHealth applications consist of a very small executable and various libraries and plugins. When the application starts, the executable is loaded, along with some libraries. The plugin manager then loads all needed plugins and executes them. The basic structure of FreeHealth EHR and its plugins system are derived from the code of Qt Creator.

Build workflow is similar for each supported OS, but there are slight differences and subtleties for each OS. This page concentrates on GNU/Linux. Read this page first. Then, have a look at these other pages with specific instructions and tips for other operating systems:

• Build apps for Windows 7 and later: specific instructions
• Build apps for Mac OS X: specific instructions

We use Git as version control system, and GitHub for code hosting.

Latest source package release is available on the download page. You must build from source package to make usable binaries. You can also create a source package yourself with script/source.sh

• FreeHealth is developed with Qt5.x latest release
• For now, FreeHealth is backward compatible with Qt 5.6.x LTS. This will not forever be true, as we will soon start using features from Qt WebEngine module that exist only in the latest releases.
• FreeHealth is tested with Qt5.6.x latest LTS release and Qt 5.X latest release
• FreeHealth is developed mainly on free and open source GNU/Linux operating systems: Debian 9 Stretch, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
• You can develop, build and contribute to FreeHealth with any OS able to run Qt (macOS, Windows) but we will not always be able to help you as much as if you were working with a GNU/Linux OS

• Be sure to uncheck the shadow build checkbox in the project mode

• If you have any strange behavior during the build process, try to start the build from scratch:
  • remove all Makefile:

    find . -type f -name Makefile -exec rm -vrf {} \;

  • remove all qmake cache:

    find . -type f -name .qmake.cache -exec rm -vrf {} \;

  • remove the build dir:

    rm -vrf ./build

  • remove the bin output dir:

    rm -vrf ./bin

We strongly suggest that you use the packages from you GNU/Linux distribution to build FreeHealth EHR.

FreeHealth devs are developing and building on Debian 9 Stretch (Stable) with Qt version 5.7.1 packages.

Tell your system to use Qt5 version of qmake (qt5-qmake) as the default:

sudo apt-get install qt5-default

In any case, use Qt version 5.7 or higher. Here is a list of Debian GNU/Linux packages required for compilation This should work on Debian 9, Debian 10, Ubuntu 17.04, Ubuntu 17.10 and other derivatives of Debian, make sure they ship with a Qt version superior or equal to 5.7

• build-essential
• libgl1-mesa-dev
• all Qt5 libs and binaries (libqt5*)
• qtscript5-dev
• qttools5-dev
• libxext-dev
• libxext6
• qtxmlpatterns5-dev-tools
• libqt5sql5-mysql (not required to build the app, but required to run it)

#Debian 9 Stable or higher & Ubuntu 16.04 or higher
sudo apt-get install build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev libxext-dev libxext6 qttools5-dev libqt5svg5 libqt5svg5-dev qtscript5-dev qt5-qmake zlib1g-dev qtxmlpatterns5-dev-tools

• By default all apps are built with the quazip 0.5.1 library. This lib is included in the source package.
• Some Linux distros do provide specific package for libquazip.
• You can get rid of the bundled QuaZip source by adding

  CONFIG+=dontbuildquazip

  to the qmake command line or by editing the buildspecs/optionalfeatures.pri file.

• Using the dontbuildquazip config tag will force the compiler to link FreeHealth code to the system QuaZip library and will only create a freemedforms-quazip-wrapper lib.

To avoid building unit tests, add “WITH_TESTS=0” to your qmake command

 qmake ...  "WITH_TESTS=0" ...

You can choose between two methods:

1. add to the qmake commande line:
   • CONFIG+=with-plugin
   • where 'plugin' is the config name of the plugin
2. Use buildspecs/optionalplugins.pri file
   • Uncomment required plugins

• Since v0.8.4, the agenda plugin is now an optional plugin
• Manages multi-user agenda
• By default, the Agenda plugin is not built. If you want to build it, you need to add
  • with-agenda tag to the config qmake command.

    qmake ... "CONFIG+=with-agenda" ...

• v0.7.6 or upper
• Manages alerts for user, patient and application
• By default, the Alert plugin is not built. If you want to build it, you need to add
  • with-alerts tag to the config qmake command.

    qmake ... "CONFIG+=with-alerts" ...

• v0.8.4 or upper
• Manages user feedback to the dev team
• By default, the Feedback plugin is not built. If you want to build it, you need
  • to add with-feedback tag to the config qmake command.

    qmake ... "CONFIG+=with-feedback" ...

• v0.8.4 or upper
• Manages patient personal & family PMHx
• By default, the PMHx plugin is not built. If you want to build it, you need
  • to add with-pmh tag to the config qmake command.

    qmake ... "CONFIG+=with-pmh" ...

• v0.8.0 or upper
• Manages webcam access (patient identity photo for eg)
• By default, the WebCam plugin is not built. If you want to build it, you need
  • to install the libopencv-dev on your computer
  • to add with-webcam tag to the config qmake command.

    qmake ... "CONFIG+=with-webcam" ...

• Build QMYSQL & QSQLITE database drivers on Debian GNU/Linux
• If you are using your own system's Qt libraries no compilation is required, just install the plugins with

  sudo apt-get install libqt5sql5-mysql libqt5sql5-sqlite

• You can build applications in two modes:
  • debug to test, two type of compilation are available here:
    • “non-install”: allow you to debug the application without the need of installing it
    • “install-exclusive”: allow you to debug the application after its installation
    • the CONFIG flag debug_without_install can be used in the qmake command line to switch to the non-install debugging mode
  • release to use the applications. In this case, you must install it.

• A generic script is provided to ease the building process (Linux only)
• Please read the help page of the script.
• Command:

  # get help
  ./build.sh -h
   
  # On Linux, you can use the GUI (you need to have zenity installed on your system)
  ./build.sh

• Translations are provided as sources. We provide some scripts to help you in that process.
• Translations must be compiled before starting the make install step.
• If you want to:
  • update the translations source file: ./updatetranslations.sh without any command line parameter. This script parses source files and extracts translatable strings into *.ts files in global_resources/translations

lupdate -version

• translate: read our translation instructions
• compile translations use the Qt tool lrelease.

  cd global_resources/translations
  lrelease *.ts

  or use our lrelease_all.sh script.

qmake is a utility that automates the generation of Makefiles.

You can use make in multiple thread (make -j X).

make -j4

• The debug mode is suitable for testing purpose. It includes all functionalities, even those which are not stable or very buggy. All logged messages and errors are printed to the console.
• There are two debug mode: a “non-install” and an “install” debug mode. See above.
• In debug mode, all processed binaries are postfixed with “_d” on Win32 platforms or “_debug” on Linux. You can inhibit this behavior with the CONFIG flag dont_postfixe_binaries on the qmake command line.

• Here are some paths descriptions :
  • binaries are located in /bin/LOWERED_APPNAME (eg: for FreeHealth EHR –> /bin/freehealth/)
  • plugins and libs are located in /bin/LOWERED_APPNAME/plugins (eg: for FreeHealth EHR –> /bin/freehealth/plugins)
  • applications resources (pixmaps, sql files etc.) are located in /global_resources
  • users resources are located in your home path (you can modify this behavior using the command line (for EHR and derivatives): –config=“../../path/to/your/config.ini”).

cd freehealth
qmake freehealth.pro -r "CONFIG+=debug debug_without_install"
make
cd bin/freehealth

# start the app
./freehealth_debug

• When you build in release mode, all instable functions are inhibited and there is no logging to the console.
• You MUST install the application (using the make install command), otherwise application will not work.
• To facilitate the installation process several parameters can be passed through the command line.

• The “CONFIG+=LINUX_INTEGRATED” can be set for a better integration into the operating system. When set, the built application will then use the Qt libraries installed in your OS. The libs are installed in /usr/lib/BuiltApplication and can not be moved. The binary is installed in /usr/bin. The application resources are installed in /usr/share/BuiltApplication. Of course, this is only available for Linux.

• The “INSTALL_ROOT_PATH=/home/me/test/” used to tell the installation process where to install the application, libs and resources. If you do not specify a path the application is installed in packages/YourOs/AppName. You can combine Linux integration and root path when building a debian package or a rpm package. Actually only valid for Linux.

• The “LIBRARY_BASENAME=lib64” is used to tell the installation process where to install plugins and libs. This is only valid in the LINUX_INTEGRATED configuration. The lib path will be: /usr/LIBRARY_BASENAME/freehealth .

# EHR sample
# 1. Building a Linux package into a fake root system
cd freehealth
qmake freehealth.pro -r -config release "CONFIG+=LINUX_INTEGRATED" "INSTALL_ROOT_PATH=%build__path/usr/"
make
make install

# 2. Fresh compilation and install without aiming to create a package
cd freehealth
qmake freehealth.pro -r -config release "CONFIG+=LINUX_INTEGRATED" "INSTALL_ROOT_PATH=/usr/"
make
make install

# FreeRx (formerly known as FreeDiams)
# 1. Building a Linux package into a fake root system
cd freediams
qmake freediams.pro -r -config release "CONFIG+=LINUX_INTEGRATED" "INSTALL_ROOT_PATH=%build__path/usr/"
make
make install

# 2. Fresh compilation and install without aiming to create a package
cd freediams
qmake freediams.pro -r -config release "CONFIG+=LINUX_INTEGRATED" "INSTALL_ROOT_PATH=/usr/"
make
make install

• A specific script is available for the source package creation: scripts/source.sh.

• You need to compile and use FreeToolBox to create and install the databases:
  • drugs database
  • drugs database with DDI (Drug Drug Interation)
  • ICD10 database
• You need to prepare and include the documentation of the application. The documentation is written on this wiki. There used to be a site exporter plugin to facilitate the extraction of documentation… it's broken.

• The source packager script will prepare a complete source archive:
  • Version numbers are defined in pluginspec, libs version, win32 scripts and others
  • To release a new version, update version number in buildspecs/projectversion.pri
  • Give you GPG key long ID (64-bit key ID) to sign the archive
  • Part of mandatory workflow for any source release

cd scripts

# Replace 0x75D4AE85B9520933 with your actual GPG key ID
./source.sh -k 0x75D4AE85B9520933

# find output
cd ../source_package
ls

We use Git as our VCS.

First tell git who you are - you are advised to use your real name and a valid email addresse, no nicknames please.

git config --global user.name "James T. Kirk"
git config --global user.email "kirk@enterprise.com"

Now git clone the code from GitHub

git clone https://github.com/FreeHealth/freehealth.git

If you want to contribute some code, register on GitHub, fork the repository and send us a pull request.

We recommend to install our pre-defined git-hooks to simplify your work when pushing to our server. They run some code quality tests at each commit and automatically correct small issues (remove whitespace at the end of lines etc.):

cd /home/kirk/freehealth/.git/hooks
ln -s ../../githooks/*

You are more than welcome to contribute code to the project! You can sign up on GitHub.com , fork our repository, modify the code and make a pull request. If you want to become a regular contributor to the project, please read Contribute and introduce yourself on the dev mailing list.