Show msvc.txt syntax highlighted
______ ___ ___
/\ _ \ /\_ \ /\_ \
\ \ \L\ \\//\ \ \//\ \ __ __ _ __ ___
\ \ __ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ /'__`\ /'_ `\/\`'__\/ __`\
\ \ \/\ \ \_\ \_ \_\ \_/\ __//\ \L\ \ \ \//\ \L\ \
\ \_\ \_\/\____\/\____\ \____\ \____ \ \_\\ \____/
\/_/\/_/\/____/\/____/\/____/\/___L\ \/_/ \/___/
/\____/
\_/__/
MSVC-specific information.
See readme.txt for a more general overview.
====================================
============ MSVC notes ============
====================================
Status: complete.
===========================================
============ Required software ============
===========================================
- Microsoft Visual C++.
- Recent set of DirectX and other Windows SDK headers.
- djgpp compiler (djdev*.zip, gcc*b.zip, and bnu*b.zip).
- GNU make (mak*b.zip).
- Optional: rm (fil*b.zip). Used by the clean targets.
- Optional: sed (sed*b.zip). Used by "make depend" and "fixdll".
- Optional: sort (txt*b.zip). Used by "fixdll". Use Unix sort, not DOS!
Allegro should work ok with MSVC versions 4, 5 and 6.
The DirectX SDK can be obtained directly from Microsoft. An old version
of the headers is included with MSVC, but Allegro requires more recent
files. You should either copy the current headers into your MSVC include
and lib directories, or alter your INCLUDE and LIB environment variables
to put the DirectX SDK files in front of the standard MSVC locations.
The djgpp compiler and associated tools can be downloaded from your
nearest SimTel mirror site, in the /pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/ directory,
or you can use the zip picker on http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/. See the
djgpp readme.1st file for information about how to install djgpp.
============================================
============ Installing Allegro ============
============================================
This is a source-only distribution, so you will have to compile Allegro
before you can use it. To do this you should:
Set up your environment so that MSVC can be used from the commandline.
You probably have a vcvars32.bat file that will do this for you. (Under
Windows NT and Windows 2000, you will have to run this file every time
you open a DOS box, or configure the environment variables in Control
Panel/System/Environment.)
Type "cd allegro", followed by "fix.bat msvc", followed by "make". Then
go do something interesting while everything compiles. When it finishes
compiling, type "make install" to set the library up ready for use.
If you also want to install a debugging version of the library (highly
recommended), now type "make install DEBUGMODE=1". Case is important, so
it must be DEBUGMODE, not debugmode!
If you also want to install a profiling version of the library, now type
"make install PROFILEMODE=1".
If you want statically linked libraries as well as the default DLL, set
the environment variable "STATICLINK=1", and repeat the "make install",
"make install DEBUGMODE=1", and "make install PROFILEMODE=1".
If your copy of Allegro doesn't include the makefile.dep dependency files
(unlikely, unless you have run "make veryclean" at some point), you can
regenerate them by running "make depend".
If your copy of Allegro doesn't include the linker .def file (unlikely,
unless you have run "make veryclean" at some point), you can regenerate
them by running "fixdll.bat".
Once the build is finished you can recover some disk space by running
"make compress", which uses the UPX program to compress the executable
files and the optimized dll. Before running "make compress", you must set
the environment variable UPX_BIN to point to upx.exe. You will have to
do run "make compress" before "make install" if you want the compressed
dll to be copied to the windows directory. To recover even more disk
space, you can run "make clean" to get rid of all the temporary files and
HTML format documentation.
=======================================
============ Using Allegro ============
=======================================
All the Allegro functions, variables, and data structures are defined in
allegro.h. You should include this in your programs, and link with one of
the libraries:
alleg.lib - optimised DLL import library
alld.lib - debugging DLL import library
allp.lib - profiling DLL import library
alleg_s.lib - statically linked optimised library
alld_s.lib - statically linked debugging library
allp_s.lib - statically linked profiling library
When using a statically linked library, you must define the preprocessor
symbol ALLEGRO_STATICLINK before including any of the Allegro headers and
link your program against Allegro and the main Win32/DirectX libraries
in that order (see the variable LIBRARIES in makefile.vc). You have also
to make sure that your program is linked against the right C run-time
library, ie. the multi-threaded DLL version of MSVCRT (or the debug
version if you are using the debug library). You can change this option
at Project - Settings - C/C++ - Category: Code Generation - Use run-time
library.
Don't forget that you need to use the AL_END_OF_MAIN() macro right after
your main() function!
If you use one of the DLL versions, you will obviously need to distribute
the appropriate DLL along with your program: these can be found in the
allegro/lib/msvc/ directory.
See more files for this project here