Revision as of 10:18, 22 August 2012

Installing CEGUI on Windows 7 Visual Studio 2010 Express

Install instructions: 08/22/2012

This will instruct you on how to build a dynamically linked library out of the CEGUI-0.7.7 source.

1. Download: CEGUI-0.7.7.zip CEGUI-DEPS-0.7.x-r3-vc10.zip
2. Unpack CEGUI-0.7.7.zip files to c:\CEGUI-0.7.7\ or some other path.
3. Unpack CEGUI-DEPS-0.7.x-r3-vc10.zip files. Now cut and past the dependencies folder into c:\CEGUI-0.7.7\
4. Run build_vs2008.bat located in C:\CEGUI-0.7.7\projects\premake\ -You should now have a CEGUI.sln file.
5. Run the CEGUI.sln using Visual C++ Express 2010. It should now load up the MSVC integrated development environment (IDE). It should also present you with a conversion wizard to convert the MSVC 2008 solution file (.sln) into a MSVC 2010 .sln
6. Press the Finish button in the conversion wizard, and then press Close. It should convert it to the proper format now.
7. Change the Solution Configurations drop-down list-box at the top of the MSVC IDE from the default Debug to Release, or leave it set to Debug.
8. Next, you have 3 options on how you may proceed to actually build the solution. You can click on the menu bar, which will open up a context menu; click on the Build Solution option when you're ready. You can do that, or if you'd like, you can just press F7 instead. Alternately, in the Solution Explorer, usually found to the right side of the IDE, you can right-click on the top most label which reads Solution 'CEGUI' (14 Projects), and then click on Build Solution from that context menu.

Your CEGUI-0.7.7 .lib files will now be generated in C:\CEGUI-0.7.7\lib\, and the corresponding .dll files will be generated in C:\CEGUI-0.7.7\bin\

Notice that after it all builds, that one project called CEGUIDirect3D9Renderer will not build due to an error, but the other 13 projects will. Inspecting the compiler output located at the bottom of the IDE will reveal why. If you look carefully through the output, you'll see this error repeating itself: fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'd3dx9.h': No such file or directory This is due to the fact that we haven't told the compiler to locate d3dx9.h If you're missing the appropriate DirectX SDK header files that the compiler is supposed to be linking to for the CEGUIDirect3D9Renderer project, and you want to render CEGUI using DirectX, you should link the proper version of DirectX to this project.

I'm a bit vague on this aspect because I do not use DirectX SDK myself, but it shouldn't be hard to figure out how to link it in manual via Debug\Options and Settings... found in the main menu bar at the top of the IDE.

Now, excluding the CEGUIDirect3D9Renderer project, if you've made it this far: CONGRATULATIONS! You're now playing with power - CEGUI POWER!!! Enjoy XD

CrazyEddie: "With regards to the DX SDK it used to automatically register itself with VC++ so the directories were correct. They stopped supporting that with VC++ 10. You can still set it up to be "globally added" to all projects, but it's a more involved procedure. By editing the config.lua, you can disable the D3D9 renderer in there if you do not have the DX SDK :)"