Configurating an IDE to customize an own OpenOffice

[dev.noob]

Hello,
I am just a Hobby-Programmer. Usually I do program just little easy Tools in Visual Studio 2015 on Windows. Now I thought that i could try to individualize my OpenOffice.
I am used to have a complete project which I can open with Visual Studio and look at the complete code, resources, forms and adjust, change or add some things and build it. Thats very easy.
But now I searched how to do it with OpenOffice for hours. The informations which I got aren't very clear for me.
What I did read is:
OpenOffice can just get into Windows Visual Studio if I download it with a special Programm (SVN) and use two other Programms to convert it to make it useable for Windows - But that is not totally clear for me.
OpenOffice is written in C++ and a lot of other languages - I would need a lot of extensions for my Visual Studio that i can handle this.
I have to write a lot of commands anywhere - But i don't know where to write all these.

My question now:
Can anyone explain me step-by-step how to come to a point where I have the complete Project inside a Developer IDE to read and change things? And how to compile that then?

Well...I would prefer to do that with my Windows and Visual Studio
But: I am open for new things...and I think that Linux could be better for that.
>I don't have any experience with Linux, but I could install it on a Virtual Machine on my Windows-Computer.
So: If it would be better to use Linux then I would need to know which Version of Linux you would suggest. Which IDE you would suggest.
I would be very happy if I could get a complete step-by-step instruction from choosing the right software versions over installing and configurating them right until I am at a point where i can read and change the complete source code.

I hope my bad english is good enough to understand what I am asking for.
Thank you for your Help and best greetings

[robleyd]

You don't need svn (Subversion) to download the source of AOO - you can get it in several compressed formats including zip (which is 323 Mb) from https://openoffice.apache.org/downloads.html Once you have downloaded and unpacked that, you should be able to tell Visual Studio where to look to create a new project based on the source files you have unpacked.

As a hobby programmer, you may find AOO a little more complex than you expect. It will be rather like having built a small garden shed, you now move to building a shopping mall.

If you need guidance on compiling the source, see https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Docume ... _Guide_AOO; unfortunately this forum won't be much if any help to you as we are mostly users not developers. There is a developer mailing list linked from here