[OpendTect_Developers] VC++ 2005 Express for building OpendTect Plugins

[Ranojay Sen]

Dear All,

In this post I'll give an overview on how to make plugins for OpendTect 
4.0 on Windows by using Visual Studio Express 2005.

Third party plugin developers need an open source (free) environment to 
write and compile their plugins. As our Windows version of OpendTect has 
been made with Visual Studio 2005, the free Visual Studio Express (VSE) 
edition is the software you need.

Microsoft does not support VSE 2005 anymore and only VSE 2008 (version 
9) is available from their website. Unfortunately VSE 2008 cannot be 
used, for the simple reason that the produced dlls are not backward 
compatible. So the 2005 edition is the only way to go.

Unlike VSE 2008, VSE 2005 does not include the platform SDKs, that means 
if you only install the software and immediately start building
some code, you will get lots of error messages complaining about missing
header files. Solution is to install the platform SDK separately and set
the header file and lib file path from the VC++ IDE.


So these are the steps you need to follow.
1) Download Visual Studio Express 2005
2) Download platform SDK
3) Set the header file and lib file from Visual Studio IDE.

In more detail:
1) Download and install VSE 2005 from: 
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Microsoft-Visual-C-Toolkit-Download-11595.html 


2) The platform SDK which needs to be downloaded is called:
"Microsoft ® Windows Server® 2003 R2 Platform SDK Web Install".
You can download it from:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0BAF2B35-C656-4969-ACE8-E4C0C0716ADB&displaylang=en 


In this page, scroll down till you find the item PSDK-x86.exe, click on
the download button beside this to download this particular item.
Install this on your system and let it chose its default location under 
Program Files. After installation, start VSE 2005, go to Tools->Options 
and select VC++ directories. This dialog box will let you select the SDK 
header files and lib files needed for building applications, now select 
the respective folders for bin, lib and include options, as in:

*  Executable files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows
Server 2003 R2\Bin
*  Include files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows
Server 2003 R2\Include
*  Library files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows
Server 2003 R2\Lib

Now you can try to compile the plugin provided other dependencies are 
properly set.

For more information about Visual Studio Express 2005 and Microsoft
Platform SDK this link could be useful:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/applications/FreeVS2005Win32.aspx


Regards
Ranojay

-- 
Ranojay Sen
dGB Earth Sciences - India
304, Gateway Plaza
Hiranandani Gardens, Powai
Mumbai-400076
India
Phone: +91 22 25704984 
Mobile: +91 9930834087

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