Hi,
This patchset enables building KiCad in MS Visual Studio (version 2017,
not tested on earlier versions). It is largely based on patches &
library builds by Simon Richter (thanks a lot!), with some improvements:
- no MSVC-specific patches other than setting the compiler parameters.
- no need for require boost::context workarounds as libcontext now
supports MSVC through native Windows Fiber API.
- prebuilt environment [1], containing the right versions of libraries
and tools (CMake & CMake modules). The supplied libraries currently
support only debug x86_64 targets.
Some of you might ask why bother with MSVC support? Here's a bunch of
reasons:
- A debugger that really works. GDB under Windows offers,
euphemistically speaking, sub-optimal user experience (very slow, Ctrl-C
kills the debugger instead of stopping the application being debugged,
enormous size of debug symbols).
- Much faster builds. GCC is very fast under Unix systems, but under
Unix emulation (MINGW) all the speed disappears.
- MSVC runtime libraries are quite different from the GNU/OSX ones. This
has already led to discovery of some critical bugs (StrNumCmp()). In
general. Building and testing KiCad with a non-GCC/Clang compiler can
only improve the quality of our code.
- I'm hoping new developers will join us. After all, 90% of desktop
software is made for Windows, most of it is written in VS and proficient
developers don't like switching their IDEs too often.
Happy testing,
Tom
PS. Could someone of our website maintainers give some space to host the
archive [1] on kicad-pcb.org?
[1] https://cernbox.cern.ch/index.php/s/UaFwaznK4258kZC
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