Another call for an RC3 installer

[HugoRune]

I would just like to add my voice to the call for an installer after wasting an hour trying to get the nightly build to work.

First of all I managed to find the wiki on installing nightly builds

I downloaded 7zip

Downloaded the MinGW 5.0.3 installer but that couldn't manage to connect.

Downloaded 5.0.2 installer (telling it not to upgrade) and managed to install from a different mirror that actually worked. Does this include GDB?

Downloaded and installed CB nightly build - extracted it into a folder in Program files

Downloaded mingw10m.dlland put it into the same folder as codeblocks.exe - assume this is where it goes as documentation is not clear about this

Dowloaded and installed wxmsw26_gcc_cb.dll and put this into same folder as codeblocks.exe as recommended in the documentation.

Ran codeblocks.exe

Got the error message "This application has failed to start because wxmsw26u_gcc_cb.dll was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem".

Now I could start trying to fart around with my path settings to see if that would fix it.

I could sit around wondering if the problem is because the filename in the error message has a letter 'u' in it which is not present in the actual filename of the dll that I downloaded.

Or I could just download RC2 because I know that it works.

I don't think I am a particularly inept potential new user. I am not desperate to be part of an alpha testing team, I just want something that works. If I could get the latest release (or at least a recent release going) I would be happy to report any bugs that I found but I can't even get off the ground at the moment. If there was a basic installer that put the framework place, I could even drop new nightly builds into that, but at the moment that does not exist.

[Biplab]

You downloaded wrong runtime library. Please download the correct library from the following link.

Code: html4strict

http://prdownload.berlios.de/codeblocks/wxmsw26u_gcc_cb_wx2.6.3p2.7z

This will solve your problem.

When I first landed to this site, I also thought the project is dead. RC2 was too old. But after I found the Nightly link, I download the latest builds almost regularly. I also feel there should be a RC3 release. This would help newbies in selecting an appropriate version to download. Anyway there are discussions going on in another thread, you may put your point there. 

Regards,

Biplab Kumar Modak

[HugoRune]

Thanks for pointing me to the dll

However, this is not the dll that is indicated in the wiki installation notes. The 24th november nightly build announcement also links to the wrong one!

Is this not an indication that an installer is needed?

[HugoRune]

ARRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

OK now I managed to get someone to point me to the correct dll (thanks again) but what about GDB?

Doesn't the minGW installer include GDB? Do I need to install that separately? Where do I get that from? What settings do I need to use?

I have to ask if the developers are trying to create a tool that other people will find easy and convenient to use, or is it just a toy for them to play with? Sorry if I appear to be a bit aggressive, but I am very frustrated at the moment. Is codeblocks going the same way as devc++?

[mandrav]

Sorry if I appear to be a bit aggressive, but I am very frustrated at the moment.

Don't mind us, you can insult us for as long as you want. That's what we 're here for: take insults for something we 're doing for free. As a matter of fact we 're trying hard to make everything to be sooo difficult so that you have no chance of making it work.
Keep it coming please.

When you 're done blaming every human on earth except you and it's not fun anymore, you might want to carefully read the instructions for installing a nightly build or ask politely for help. It's no nuclear physics, hundreds/thousands of people have installed a nightly build before you. This alone should get you thinking...

[HugoRune]

Finally I trawled through the forum and found a recent installer that someone has produced.
http://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php?topic=3225.msg34340#msg34340

It works too (at least for me). And that's all I wanted. Thank you to bigbug for producing it. The real shame of this is that I had to spend a lot of time and frustration before I found it.

And I think I did carefully read the instructions for getting a nightly build to work. In at least one place they were wrong (linked to wxmsw26_gcc_cb.dll instead of wxmsw26u_gcc_cb.dll, even on the latest nightly build announcement). It is a long intricate process to get going for the first time, especially if you have never used the software before. I have no doubt it is easier to update nightly builds when you have got the framework in place, but to do it from scratch is not easy.

I apologise again if I appeared to be rude, but I found the whole experience to be very frustrating. This is probably the same experience that a lot of potential new users must have (especially the wrong dll issue). How many people are giving up, or assuming that the project is dead? The really sad thing is that the work for an installer has been done, but this information is buried at the end of a thread in the forum.

I am sorry if you or anyone else felt insulted by my comments. I appreciate the work you are doing and now I appear to be up and running I am very impressed. However I think you are really doing yourselves a major disservice by not making a more recent installer available on the download page. It really does look like the project is not being actively developed.

[thomas]

As for the nightly build, please download:
1. the program archive
2. the wxWidgets DLL
3. the mingwm10whateverititscalled DLL

Unpack all into the same location.

As for MinGW with GDB:
Go to our WiKi, and type "mingw" into the search box. You'll get to a page that lists every packaged that you could possibly need for a complete manual install.
Download all from "base system", plus any other languages you want, plus GDB. Put everything into one folder (except for GDB, which is an installer exe), select all, right-click, and select "unzip here".
Then run the GDB installer and delete all files that you downloaded.

Takes about 5 minutes alltogether (unless you have an extremely slow internet connection).

[Biplab]

Thanks for pointing me to the dll

However, this is not the dll that is indicated in the wiki installation notes. The 24th november nightly build announcement also links to the wrong one!

Is this not an indication that an installer is needed?

Read the wiki carefully. All the instructions are perfect.

Also this is the dll you need to run the nightly builds. I just rechecked and all the links are fine. I don't know whether the Code::Blocks developers are maintaining any other secret version of this dll.

To sum up either you didn't read the instructions carefully or you don't know how to read them. Please don't vent your anger blindly without doing the best from your part.

I am also sorry if it seems harsh to you, but I can't stop writing this.

[HugoRune]

OK I re-read the wiki and I apologise. I don't know how I got the wrong dll, but somehow I did.

However, I still maintain that the install process is far more complex than it needs to be. It is obvious that users are crying out for a new interim release, and with good reason. Looking at the download web page on the main codeblocks site, the project appears to be dead. It doesn't look good that the last release candidate was over a year ago. You and I know that a lot has happened since RC2, but that's not how it appears.

Someone has already done an installer and it seems to do the job. Why not slap an RC3 label on that and make it an official download? It would be better than the current situation from the point of view of attracting new users. Anyway, I have got something working now (thanks to the installer from bigbug, and I have said my piece so I will let the matter drop. Thanks to all of you for responding (even if you disagree with me).

[killerbot]

1) what do you man the link on the nightly announcements is wrong  ??

A link to the unicode windows wxWidget dll for Code::Blocks : http://prdownload.berlios.de/codeblocks/wxmsw26u_gcc_cb_wx2.6.3p2.7z

For those who might need this one (when no MingW installed on your system) : the mingw10m.dll : http://prdownload.berlios.de/codeblocks/mingwm10.7z

For support of ansi builds, a link to the ansi windows wxWidget dll for Code::Blocks : http://prdownload.berlios.de/codeblocks/wxmsw26_gcc_cb_wx2.6.3p2.7z

mark the words "unicode" and "ansi" ....

2) note the sticky posts at "http://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php?board=20.0"
especially  "http://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php?topic=3232.0"
seems to my the guidelines are very nearby the nightlies .

However : ideas to improve are always welcome

3) Why no installer : we create CB; not MinGW, plus we don't want to put a high download on people therefor, there's a very small zip file. What's the use of every night having people to download mingw.dll and wx dll ....
I think it's a sound choice we made.

[Grom]

To stop all discussions you have to make installer for nightly builds every week and put it to the page. Community have no rights to do that on your web page.

[MortenMacFly]

[...whatever...]

Although I understand Russian I'd be glad if you remove the bottom line of your sig. This is an English-only forum and non-Russian speaker might think you talk bad about them.
With regards, Morten.

[orefa]

Commercial products have explicit deadlines and features so a version 1.0 (or 2.3 or whatever) with such features targetted for such release date is needed in this context. But this traditional #.# versioning approach seems ill-suited for the dynamics of volunteer development of an open source project. People who simply enjoy doing something for free are not obligated to anyone in any way. There is no deadlines and none should exist. There is no limit on features to implement and none should exist either. Of course these volunteers could decide for themselves that they will adopt the discipline of a commercial group, but where is the fun in that?

Clearly the RC2 date and the expectation of a 1.0 version causes frustrations for users. At times, developpers get splashed by a sample of this (like now). To fix this once and for all I advocate dropping the common 1.0 system and adopting a date version. The #.#.# format is somewhat useful and expected so I also advocate using a year.month.day approach where 6.11.25 would be today's version. Whenever a version is stable enough, or when developpers have time, or when they feel like it, the main web page can be updated with it. Bandwidth usage should not be affected except due to growth in popularity.

Under this approach, older versions could also be posted on the download page, possibly with comments regarding known bugs or shortcomings of each posted version. Then visitors can decide for themselves if they prefer to use the latest version or a slightly older one. Of course, multiple versions would probably increase bandwidth costs as many users might download multiple versions to see which they prefer. But mirror sites can help with that and volunteer hosts would likely be found more easily as popularity increases (and I'm sure it would).

[mandrav]

Everybody be patient. We 're nearing the feature freeze so all these discussions are pretty much pointless.
It's nice that everybody is sharing his views on things but many times things are not as easy as they may seem to be. Anybody who thinks that all it takes to make a release is to slap a version number on a setup file is plain wrong and obviously has never been involved as a developer in a large project like this.
Trust me, it takes much more than that to make a release .

[dje]

Thanks to all for make me feel so intelligent !!! 

I am a daily user of the nightly builds.
The first time is a little bit more complicated than other but after, download, drag and drop through 7zip and it works ! 

I finally love this way of project management because you can always be up to date instead of waiting for months (years ??) for new releases.

Dje