Installing Code::Blocks from source on Windows

Prerequisites

Note for RC2 users

The older Code::Blocks RC2 does not support global compiler variables which were added after RC2 was released and is unable to read project files generated with post-RC2 versions. To build Code::Blocks, you need a post-RC2 build, such as any of the nightly builds obtainable by searching the forum. [/index.php?board=20.0]

Code::Blocks officially supports wxWidgets 2.6 (although you might be able to build with other releases). At the present time, Code::Blocks only compiles successfully with the MinGW compiler. You need a complete, working MinGW installation. [1]

You do not need MSYS (in fact, if you have MSYS, make sure it is not in your PATH when building wxWidgets).

Download wxWidgets 2.6.2 from Sourceforge[2]

You will also (obviously) need the Code::Blocks sources. It is recommended that you install TortoiseSVN [3]on your machine, as this is a lot more comfortable. However, if you get a bad feeling when some program is messing with your Explorer menu, then you can use the commandline client of svn [4] , it works just fine.

Using TortoiseSVN, make a folder where you want to store the sources, right-click on the folder, and select "SVN Checkout...". In the top box, enter svn://svn.berlios.de/codeblocks/trunk and hit the OK button.

Using svn, you have to open a command prompt ("DOS Window"). Make a folder, change directory, and run svn:

 mkdir codeblocks-head
 cd codeblocks-head
 svn checkout svn://svn.berlios.de/codeblocks/trunk

Building

Unicode Build

Compile wxWidgets in Unicode mode

After unpacking the zip file to a directory of your choice, open a cmd prompt, and navigate to the folder build/msw inside the wxWidgets folder. Use the following commands to compile wxWidgets:

 set path=c:\mingw\bin;c:\mingw\mingw32\bin
 mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc USE_XRC=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 BUILD=release UNICODE=1  clean
 mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc USE_XRC=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 BUILD=release UNICODE=1

This assumes your MinGW installation is in C:\mingw. Use a different path if you installed MinGW somewhere else.

You will see a lot of warning messages during compilation. Don't worry, this is normal, you are compiling wxWidgets. The build process may take 10-30 minutes, depending on your computer's speed.

Optional:

To reduce the size of your wxWidgets library, you can disable features which are not used by Code::Blocks. However, you should not do this unless you know what you are doing. You have to delete the generated setup.h from lib/gcc_dll/msw/wx before building, because your changes to include/wx/msw will otherwise not be honoured.

Compile Code::Blocks

Open the project CodeBlocks.cbp. You will be prompted to define the global variable $(#wx). Enter the location where you unpacked wxWidgets.

Hit the blue gear and lean back. Compilation may take 3-5 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer. After the compilaton has finished, copy wxmsw26u_gcc_cb.dll from lib\gcc_dll\mswu inside the wxWidgets directory to the devel directory inside the Code::Blocks source folder (it will also work if you keep a copy of that library in your Windows folder or anywhere in your system path, but this is generally not recommended because you can get into dll hell ). Run update.bat (located in the root source directory). This will pack the resource files and copy libraries and plugins to their correct locations.

Install Code::Blocks

Copy the folder output to where you want Code::Blocks to reside.

Compile contributed (or your own) plugins

The workspace file ContribPlugins.workspace contains the project files for all contributed plugins. Open that workspace and compile the plugins which you would like to use (or select "Build Workspace" from the context menu if you want them all). Don't forget to run update.bat again after building the contrib plugins.

ANSI Build

Note: Code::Blocks is now built in Unicode mode by default (see above). However, if you don't care about Unicode or if you use an old Windows version that does not support Unicode, then you might want to build an ANSI version nevertheless.

Compile wxWidgets in ANSI mode

After unpacking the zip file to a directory of your choice, open a cmd prompt, and navigate to the folder build/msw inside the wxWidgets folder. Use the following commands to compile wxWidgets

 set path=c:\mingw\bin;c:\mingw\mingw32\bin
 mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc USE_XRC=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 BUILD=release UNICODE=0 clean
 mingw32-make -f makefile.gcc USE_XRC=1 SHARED=1 MONOLITHIC=1 BUILD=release UNICODE=0

This assumes your MinGW installation is in C:\mingw. Use a different path if you installed MinGW somewhere else.

You will see a lot of warning messages during compilation. Don't worry, this is normal, you are compiling wxWidgets. The build process may take 10-30 minutes, depending on your computer's speed.

Optional:

To reduce the size of your wxWidgets library, you can disable features which are not used by Code::Blocks. However, you should not do this unless you know what you are doing. You have to delete the generated setup.h from lib/gcc_dll/msw/wx before building, because your changes to include/wx/msw will otherwise not be honoured.

Compile Code::Blocks

Open the project CodeBlocks.cbp. You will be prompted to define the global variable $(#wx) if you have not used it before. Enter the location where you unpacked wxWidgets.

_Important:_ The project file is set to compile an Unicode version of Code::Blocks by default. To make an ANSI build, you have to make the following two changes to build options before compiling: 1. In the "Compiler" tab, under "#defines", remove the entry wxUSE_UNICODE. 2. Under "Custom variables", set the variable WX_SUFFIX to empty (default value: u).

Hit the blue gear and lean back. Compilation may take 3-5 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer. After the compilaton has finished, copy wxmsw26_gcc_cb.dll from lib\gcc_dll\msw inside the wxWidgets directory to the devel directory inside the Code::Blocks source folder (it will also work if you keep a copy of that library in your Windows folder or anywhere in your system path, but this is generally not recommended because you can get into _dll hell_ ). Run update.bat (located in the root source directory). This will pack the resource files and copy libraries and plugins to their correct locations.

Install Code::Blocks

Copy the folder output to where you want Code::Blocks to reside.

Compile contributed (or your own) plugins

The workspace file ContribPlugins.workspace contains the project files for all contributed plugins. Open that workspace and compile the plugins which you would like to use (or select "Build Workspace" from the context menu if you want them all). Don't forget to run update.bat again after building the contrib plugins.

Provided by Thomas Denk