Improve Windows build instructions

[gonutz]

I followed your instructions to get the game running on Windows. I installed Qt, cmake and Visual Studio and am able to build the game but your last instructions were not clear to me. In your README you say:

Run windeployqt to copy dependencies into bin folder.
C:\Qt\5.10.1\msvc2017_64\bin\windeployqt.exe --release dist\procalc.exe --dir dist

It gives me the error

"dist\procalc.exe" does not exist.

so instead I use Release instead of dist for the directory, making the command

C:\Qt\5.10.1\msvc2017_64\bin\windeployqt.exe --release Release\procalc.exe --dir Release

which works for me. However, when running the game I noticed that in the About dialog after the calculator changes for the first time, it seems to not find the path to an image in Debug build, here is what I see

but I remember that the Steam version had the Apex logo there or some other image.

The Settings dialog is also blank and just has the magic number displayed.

[Rob Jinman]

Looks like the INSTALL target didn't run, or it installed to the wrong place. Did you forget to supply -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=./dist when running cmake? Also, make sure you run cmake from inside project_root/build/win64.

[gonutz]

Inside
pro_office_calc\dependencies\build\win64
I ran
cmake -D USE_LOCAL_DEPS=1 -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=./dist -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug -G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" ../..
Then I get the error message described above. To be sure I just started all over again and did everything as you described and got the same results.

[gonutz]

I got the game working by copying the data folder into the Release folder, next to the procalc.exe so it at least finds the data and runs so now I can start changing the code to see what is what.

[Rob Jinman]

Good to hear. I was in the process of typing this, so might as well post it.

From <project_root>/dependencies/build/win64 run

    cmake -D CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS=/w ^
          -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=./dist ^
          -G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" ../..

Open the solution, select the Release configuration from the drop-down, then build ALL_BUILD.

You should now have the dependencies built and installed to <project_root>/dependencies/build/win64/dist.

Now, from <project_root>/build/win64, run

    cmake -D USE_LOCAL_DEPS=1 ^
          -D CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=./dist ^
          -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug ^
          -G "Visual Studio 15 2017 Win64" ../..

Open the solution, select the Release configuration (even if Debug was specified above), and build INSTALL.

Now run

    C:\Qt\5.10.1\msvc2017_64\bin\windeployqt.exe --release Release\procalc.exe --dir Release

The game should now be in <project_root>/build/win64/dist with all its dependencies.

[gonutz]

I did everything as you said, instead that you changed the windeplyqt line to use Release instead of dist as stated in your README. Using Release works as mentioned above, still I need to copy over the data folder manually into the Release folder or it will lack all images.

[gonutz]

One more question, is it correct that once I got this all working, I can just fire up the procalc VS solution, hit build and run and it works? The windeployqt does not need to be executed every time, does it?

[Rob Jinman]

One more question, is it correct that once I got this all working, I can just fire up the procalc VS solution, hit build and run and it works? The windeployqt does not need to be executed every time, does it?

That's correct.

[gonutz]

OK thanks very much for your help so far, I am now able to modify the game and run it from VS.

I have to say, downloading and installing 25 GB of stuff is quite the endeavor for a 100 MB game - you choosing Qt was a brave decision and I am a bit proud of getting everything to run ;-)

But seriously, your build instructions are very good, typically when I try to build something off github it fails at several points until I rage quit but your README is great and I very much appreciate your quick response time in the comments.

I will let you know when I find a solution for the mouse issue #6.

[Rob Jinman]

Thanks, yeah Qt is a huge framework, but the bits of it that actually get deployed to the user aren't too big.

I think I've just fixed the bug. Can you pull the latest from the develop branch and confirm?

[gonutz]

Indeed! Still, this issue here is for the readme, maybe you could change the line above to

 C:\Qt\5.10.1\msvc2017_64\bin\windeployqt.exe --release Release\procalc.exe --dir Release

in there. I am going to close this now anyway.