I think you are trying to compile the old deprecated C++/wxWidgets editor. The new one is written in Vala/GTK3 and is located in /trunk/editor-vala folder.
In order to compile new editor-vala you need distros with GTK3 installed, for example, Fedora 15 or Ubuntu 11.10, or backport GTK into your older distro.
New editor-vala compiling instructions are to be announced yet, but basic requirements are:
valac (0.12 or 0.14)
libgtk 3.0 devel (or 3.2)
GIR bindings for gtk, cairo
gnu autotools (autoconf, automake…)
Anjuta 3.0 or 3.2 (easier development and compiling)
try to find the package names and install them, if you cant install them with yum or apt-get you can always download the sourcecode from every homepage and compile them yourself.
Try adding a GTK+ 3.x PPA
If not, try to change configure.ac for minimum GTK and Vala versions required, but maybe some symbols are GTK3 only, like primary toolbar style settings.
I couldn’t compile on Linux (seems that there aren’t all packages yet for 11.10 or that appeared on my terminal), so I’m switching for windows (i had C++ of a former school project), so I’ll try there.