AndrewSmart / wxWidgetsTemplateNuGet

OBSOLETE: See https://www.wxwidgets.org/blog/2019/01/wxwidgets-and-vcpkg/ -- This is the source for a NuGet package which assists projects that depend on wxWidgets. Technology described here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2013/06/18/deep-dive-into-nuget-native-part-one.aspx

wxWidgetsTemplateNuGet

The license for this package and its contents are that of the wxWidgets project: http://www.wxwidgets.org/about/licence/ Copyright (c) 2013-2015 Andrew Smart

TECHNICALLY OBSOLETE by new Microsoft tooling and NOT MAINTAINED. See: https://www.wxwidgets.org/blog/2019/01/wxwidgets-and-vcpkg/

This NuGet package assists MSVC projects that depend on wxWidgets.

Guide to installing and configuring this package is here: https://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Microsoft_Visual_C++_NuGet

There is no need to configure this package if the WXWIN environmental variable defined, and the wxWidgets DLLs exist there.

This package modifies the project in many ways, including:

• Defining wxWidgets preprocessor directives on the project level, where appropriate:
  • _WINDOWS, WXMSW, WXUSINGDLL, WXDEBUG, WIN32, WXUNIVERSAL, wxTOOLKIT_PREFIX=mswuniv
• Adds the wxWidgets include folder to the compiler search paths.
• Adds the wxWidgets library folder to the compiler search paths.
• Links against all appropriate wxWidgets libraries.
  • Implemented via the PCH including wx/wxprec.h, which includes msvc/wx/setup.h
  • See msvc/wx/setup.h for details.
• Allows any developer on the project to link to any wxWidgets build they want.
  • e.g. link to static/dynamic build
  • e.g. link to monolithic build
  • Their decision, without this NuGet package, would otherwise modify the .vcxproj file, forcing their choice on every developer on the project.
  • There is no need to define the WXWIN environmental variable; though it will use it as the default if it is defined.
• In project output folder (where .exe is placed), hardlinks to all relevant wxWidgets .dll, .manifest, .pdb are written.
  • This is to help you know what .dll files your .exe depends on; these may be redistributed with the .exe.
  • Also this allows the .exe to be run locally within this folder, as it will be able to find the .dll files it depends on.
  • Microsoft Explorer is incorrect in the display of hardlink file sizes, it reports the file size of what the hardlink links to.
  • Read more about hardlinks (and MSBuild's creation of them) if interested.
  • I'm not sure if anyone even needs the .manifest/.pdb files here, but I hardlinked them here just in case someone does.
• Creates a PCH to more than halve compilation time.
  • It won't override any other PCH set up in the project (in that PCH I suggest including wx/wxprec.h).
  • If your project is large I suggest not relying on this package's PCH, as it only includes wx/wxprec.h, and cannot include any other rarely changing header files your project has.
  • You must place #include <wx/wxprec.h> at the top of all the project's source (.cpp) files, otherwise there will be a build error.
  • If you don't want a source (.cpp) file to use the wxWidgets PCH (i.e. it doesn't use wxWidgets), right click on that source file, and set it to not use a PCH.
• Sets up project to use MSVC memory leak detection facilities: https://wiki.wxwidgets.org/Avoiding_Memory_Leaks#Automatic_leak_detection_with_Microsoft_VisualC.2B.2B
  • Defines _CRTDBG_MAP_ALLOC preprocessor directive.
  • Employs project wide usage of memory leak detection via directives in the packaged PCH
  • When in debug mode of a debug configuration, and application is exited, any memory leaks will be printed to the output pane of Visual Studio with a message like so: Detected memory leaks! Dumping objects ->

Modern wxWidgets is built using the Unicode character set; starting around Visual Studio 2012 new VC++ projects use the Unicode character set by default.

• You may need to manually set this Unicode setting in order for your executable to link against the wxWidgets library without problems.
• This setting is in the project property pages, under the General category.
• Here is some helpful information if you run into issues here (e.g. some libraries are ANSI, some are Unicode, and what to set your project to compile with): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10241540/implications-of-using-non-unicode-library-with-a-unicode-built-application

NuGet/C++ technology described here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2013/06/18/deep-dive-into-nuget-native-part-one.aspx