README.windows

xLights/Nutcracker Version 3.x Windows build instructions
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xLights/Nutcracker can be built and run on Linux, Mac OS/X, or Windows. This
document describes how **developers** should set up their tool chain to build
xLights/Nutcracker on Windows.

If you are a Windows user, installation packages are available at
http://www.nutcracker123.com/nutcracker/releases/

xLights/Nutcracker is written in C++ and uses the wxWidgets library as a
compatibility layer across operating systems.  The minimum required version
of wxWidgets for xLights/Nutcracker is 3.0.0.  Do not use the pre-compiled 
Windows binaries of wxWidgets, as these are for the Visual Studio IDE.


Here are the steps to compile xLights/Nutcracker for Windows.

  a) Install Code::Blocks for Windows (currently using version 12.11)

     Download and install the codeblocks-12.11mingw-setup_user.exe file from here:
        http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads
     This includes Code::Blocks and the GNU C++ compiler needed for building xLights.

  c) wxWidgets for Windows (currently using version 3.0.0)

     Download the version with the Windows installer from here:
        http://www.wxwidgets.org/downloads/
     The installer only puts the wxWidgets source code on your system, you will need
     to compile it yourself to create the dll. To compile it yourself:

     1) Open a command prompt
     2) cd to the build\msw directory under your wxWidgets base directory
     3) Some users have reported that their path variable was too long, which confused the wx buld.
        If so, try: SET Path=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\mingw\bin
     4) run: mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc MONOLITHIC=1 SHARED=1 UNICODE=1 CXXFLAGS="-std=gnu++0x" BUILD=debug
        (last changed 7 SEPT 2013)
     5) run: mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc MONOLITHIC=1 SHARED=1 UNICODE=1 CXXFLAGS="-std=gnu++0x" BUILD=release
        (last changed 7 SEPT 2013)
     6) If you downloaded the zip or 7z version of wxWidgets instead of the Windows installer version, 
        then you need to update your path environment variable to include C:\wxWidgets-3.0.0\lib\gcc_dll
        (assuming C:\wxWidgets-3.0.0 is your wxWidgets base directory).

  d) In Code::Blocks:
     1) select Settings > Compiler
     2) click Search Directories tab
     3) Under Compiler sub-tab should be:
          $(#wx)\include
          $(#wx)\contrib\include
     4) Under Linker sub-tab should be:
          $(#wx)\lib\gcc_dll
     5) Make sure "wx" is defined under Settings > Global Variables
        as described in the Code::Blocks documentation. It should be
        set to your wxWidgets base directory. Just the "Base" field
        needs to be filled in - to something like "C:\wxWidgets-3.0.0",
        assuming that is where your copy of wxWidgets is located.

  e) Now you are ready to use Code::Blocks to build xLights
     by double-clicking on the cbp file in the version2/xLights directory.

     
Windows Installer

    We use Inno Setup to create the setup.exe for xLights/Nutcracker
    http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

    You will find a xLights.iss file that is used to create the release setup.exe