Hacker Guide/VLC source tree

This page lists the directories in the source tree of VLC, aimed at giving new beginners an overview of the code.

 Why Does This Page Exist?
 Well, simply because VLC has evolved with not so much accumulation in mind, 
 and when a new coder looks at the code, s/he is   terrified by the abundance of directories. 
 If someone could explain why, for example, activex is not in the bindings folder, why there
 is a separate python directory at the root,   what several directories like evc, lxdialog are, 
 that would be great! Note that I have added a FIXME! at the beginning of the explanation
 of those directories.  Please remove this paragraph when done.

The directories are listed in alphabetical order, with an overview of their contents on the right.

Directory Name	Directory Explanation
activex	activex bindings
bindings	Java and Python bindings
doc	Documentation (not up-to-date)
evc	Deprecated, embedded Visual Studio files.
extras -	contrib (subdirectory of extras) - for required libraries (contains Makefiles to automatically download and compile (or cross-compile) and patch those. Please first attempt to get the development headers precompiled for your distribution. extras also contains the emacs.init file (useful for coding in Videolan style)
include	Header files for vlc
ipkg	A package distribution system used by some Linux disrtibutions. This probably contains definition files for the packages.
libs	FIX ME! Loader and secure rtp libraries
lxdialog	FIX ME! I guess this is not important, last modified 1 year ago!
m4	Macro files needed for ???
modules	most important directory. See Modules source tree.
mozilla	Mozilla plugin
msvc	Deprecated, Microsoft Visual C files I guess
po	i18n files
python	FIX ME! not important
share	icons,scripts to make VLC the default player etc.
src	to-do
test	scripts to see if everything is OK