What version of Visual Studio Express to use ?
Widdershins Studio
Posts: 539
I've tried loading the samples in VS 2105 Exp - the newest one, but I get loads of errors.
Would it be better to use an older version and if so which one please ?
Thank you.
Comments
Its Visual Studio 2010 Not sure about the express version.
Thanks, I'm trying it withe Express, I don't have much experience of C++ though.
Silly question - when you debug or build the dll where does it end up ?
Usually where the project files are, in a "bin" subfolder
Yeah that's where I would look first. I'm more used to VB and C#.
I found them in C:\Users\Public\Documents\exec\Debug\Win32\plugins
Sorry for the misleading answer, I have not used C++ in years so it was a guess based on old memories and my latests C# projects.
No problem, at this stage I am just guessing a lot !
To spare the pain for anyone else trying to make plugins. After a lot of messing around I found I can build them okay.
I'm using Visual Studio Express new version : https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/products/visual-studio-express-vs.aspx
At first this will not work though, because you need the Build Tools for Visual Studio 10.
The easiest way to do that is to install Visual Studio Express 10 - Google for a download, there's ISOs available which is what I did and then just installed from the ISO as if it was a disk.
So now you have two IDEs.
You may just prefer to skip the new version of VS and use 10, in which case skip installing VSE Community as they now call it and just use VS10 Express.
Anyway, then I wondered why plugins would not load into Daz. Turns out I forgot DS is now 64 bit. So you need to build as per the screengrab.
Then hopefully your plugin, or the samples as is my case so far, will build.
Find the .dll in the folder I mentioned above and there it is.
Good luck
With VS the location of the output dll is usually defined in the project properties, look for CONFIGURATION PROPERTIES > GENERAL > OUTPUT DIRECTORY
It is likely to be a relative path, something like ..\..\..\..\..\exec\$(Configuration)\$(Platform)\plugins\
where $(Configuration) will evaluate to whichever build configuration you currently have set e.g. Debug
and $(Platform) will evaluate to whichever platform you are currently building for e.g. Win32
so if you change your target platform build from Win32 to x64 you will then find the dll in C:\Users\Public\Documents\exec\Debug\x64\plugins
Be aware that there may still be a previous built dll (built for Win32) in C:\Users\Public\Documents\exec\Debug\Win32\plugins
You can set Platform to All Platforms and it will try to build both Win32 and x64, but for testing you have to select the correct dll for the version of DS you are testing with. (DS has Win32 and x64 versions available for download)
When you get to building your own addin don't forget to make sure that the project TARGET NAME and the LIBRARY name in the def file are exactly the same.
Thank you very much for the tips.
It's not as intutive as some languages. Most of my experience is with PHP, C#, javascript.
Still just learning how to find my way around the IDE at the moment. Feel like a noob again !
I need to find some reference materials for the elements that I can put on a plugin at the moment, can't seem to find much and Google has not been helpful as yet.
Cheers.
Ahh, just found the docs, I was so busy I forgot it installed those - looks like War & Peace
I'm actually using the latest VS (2015) and while you may have to adjust a few project and solution settings, it works just fine. I've built and tested both win32 and x64 built plugins with DS and they work just fine.
Now if DAZ will just get the SDK documentation updated and completed....... (yeah, I know.....but I can dream...)
Tangentially related; Has anyone used any IDE other than Visual Studio with the Daz SDK, or are there some MS specific dependencies that make that too much of a chore?
Has anyone used the Eclipse IDE for plug-in development?