MSVC 2003 Toolkit

[TommyC]

Anyone fearless enough to try to get codeblocks working w/ microsofts free toolkit?  I'd really like to use codeblocks, but I'm growing a little impatient waiting for the 'official' tutorial for setting up msvc.  If you've got tips/tricks/settings for getting it work it'd be greatly appreciated!

[mandrav]

The compiler abstraction framework needs a little refactoring, as it is now, to make it *really* easy to support other compilers. It's on my todo list (maybe I should make it public).
Don't get me wrong. It still can be configured to work with ms toolkit now. I will post, in the next few days, a small howto describing the configuration needed.
You will still need, though, the GNU make command, because Code::Blocks' compiler plugin is designed to work with a makefile. That is until someone creates a compiler plugin that does not need a makefile to work

Stay tuned,
Yiannis

[Anonymous]

I managed to get the MS vc++ toolkit to work in codeblocks and also Windows platform SDK and DirectX 9.0 SDK and its all working nicely. Getting it to work took me most of 2 days and its really ugly, in fact I can barely remember all of the settings I changed to get it to work!.

There is no dependency maker or build utility(make) with the MS toolkit so you still need use gcc to generate the dependencies and the make program. Both those tools can be found in the packages for Cygwin. The compiler message translator thingy in codeblocks doesnt work with cl.exe so you cant jump to lines with errors by clicking on the error message. Also I dont think there is anyway to use the MS debugging tools with codeblocks, though the MS debugger already has a nice gui(you will also need the debug symbols for it to work properly) As long as you have a good understanding of how cl, link, gcc and make work and all of the command line flags and options for them, then you should be able to figure it out in a day or so... heheh I cant be bothered explaining the details

To develop Windows apps properly, you also need the Windows platform SDK installed. You also need to set up a whole load of paths and environment variables including the paths for the platform SDK(lib and include), the Cygwin and MS toolkit bin directories etc.

[Anonymous]

By the way, thanks for the excellent IDE- its actually the only freeware one which I could get to work smoothly with vc++ toolkit, all of the other ones only support gcc. Even though its still beta, its pretty stable and has some very nice features and I cant wait to see what great plugins are added.

[mandrav]

By the way, thanks for the excellent IDE- its actually the only freeware one which I could get to work smoothly with vc++ toolkit, all of the other ones only support gcc. Even though its still beta, its pretty stable and has some very nice features and I cant wait to see what great plugins are added.

Nice to hear you got it working!
Since I 've never used MSVC my instructions would be below par. If you don't have time to write a small howto describing what you did to make codeblocks work with vc toolkit, you can export the HKCU/Code::Blocks registry key and send it to me. It does contain your configuration changes. No private information is kept there - except your compiler's paths

If you do that, I can write the small howto for other users to enjoy using codeblocks with the vc toolkit

Cheers,
Yiannis.

[Sanquin]

Since msvc support seems minimal at best at this point. Why not use something else in the meantime. This is by no means putting down codeblocks, but until things get ironed out, why not use something that will work.
The Relo Compiler has support for the toolkit. And someone has gone so far as to create videos for setting up the ide to use msvc 2003 (super simple) as well as getting the irrlicht 3d engine to work as well. It's excellent.

http://www.fifsoft.com/relo/
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4132&highlight=relo

[Fatman]

Yeah... I can't get it working.

I tried building the supplied Win32 app. It worked on VS6, but not in Code::Blocks. I can't figure it out, I keep getting linker errors for basic windows functions like DispatchMessage and TranslateMessage, although I have linked all the lib folders specified in VS6 [and all the include ones for good measure].

I think this must be a shortcoming in the VC Toolkit, though I couldn't get the MinGW compiler working either.

I'll give the other compiler a try instead.

[Anonymous]

The Relo IDE has been working flawlessly.

[Fatman]

No luck with Borland, MS or GNU compilers.

Right, Guest... I've been using Relo with VC++ and Irrlicht, and afecelis' video tutorials on setting it up are really excellent. Great stuff, but I'll keep an eye on the Code::Blocks project as well, just to see if the situation improves. Perhaps someone in this community needs to make some video tutorials on setting Code::Blocks up properly. Good luck all!

***EDIT***

ps. Keep up the good work Yiannis, don't be downhearted by this mass [?] exodus to Relo. Something tells me we'll be using Code::Blocks in future.