Windows instructions

[laanwj]

After having converted the build system to meson, and reducing the build-time dependencies to just SDL2 (for the non-debugger build), it should be more straightforward to do a windows build.

I don't know windows development myself, so could use some help here.

[laanwj]

At least the CI tests pass on Windows now. Shouldn't be too hard to build an .exe.

[laanwj]

These steps seem sufficient to build a Windows binary with github actions, with MSVC:

  windows:
    runs-on: windows-latest
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
    - uses: actions/setup-python@v4
      with:
        python-version: '3.x'
    - name: Prepare MSVC
      uses: bus1/cabuild/action/msdevshell@v1
      with:
        architecture: x64
    - run: pip install meson ninja
    - run: |
        mkdir subprojects
        meson wrap install sdl2
    - run: meson setup  --buildtype release -Dgame_cheats=true -Ddebug_ui=true builddir/
    - run: ninja -C builddir
    - run: meson test -C builddir/ -v
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
      if: failure()
      with:
        name: Windows_Meson_Testlog
        path: builddir/meson-logs/testlog.txt
    - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
      with:
        name: Windows_Executable
        path: builddir/src/sundog.exe

Then you can download the artifact and run sundog.exe <disk_image> (or copy sundog.st to the directory of the exe).

• If you get an error about missing DLLs, make sure you have the appropriate VC redistributable installed (and double-check you're building in release mode, not debug mode).
• If you get an error about not being able to initialize GL driver, your WGL driver doesn't have native support for OpenGL ES 2/3. You'll need to copy the ANGLE DLLs (libEGL.dll libGLESv2.dll and d3dcompiler_XX.dll)) to the current directory before running. You can build them yourself or copy them from a Google Chrome/Chromium distribution.

[laanwj]

Some notes on building a binary release

• Instead of building and statically linking SDL, link against and ship the official release DLLs. This makes sure we don't inherit bugs from bleeding-edge SDL, and speeds up the build.

• I can't find any (trustable) download of just the ANGLE DLLs, that could be used to create a release. Here's a github action that builds it, might be useful for buliding a release: https://github.com/xiaozhuai/angle_builds
  However it's broken right now, due to a missing option while downloading the windows SDL: https://github.com/xiaozhuai/angle_builds/pull/2
  Another possibility may be to build it using vcpkg install angle:x64-windows.