AutoHotkey Community

Here's a list of instructions that I have pieced together based on installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition and using it to compile AutoHotkey on XP Pro SP2 and Vista Home Premium). Note: The files in the steps listed were from an XP Pro SP2 installation. Other Win versions may have different downloads (Vista does). Please check the system requirements for the downloads if you are not sure.

If you had previously gone through the steps to get Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition installed and don't want to through the steps listed below to manually make the necessary modifications then you can download modified sln and vcproj files for version 1.0.46.16 in a zip file. After downloading and extracting the AutoHotkey source files, extract the 2 files in the zip file, replace the 2 existing project files and open the sln file in VC++. The conversion wizard will still start but after completing the wizard (and copying upx.exe to the source directory if necessary) AutoHotkey should compile ok. If anyone decides to try this method then please let me know if it works ok for you.

Modified sln and vcproj files for version:
1.0.47.01
1.0.46.17
1.0.46.16


Install and configure Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition

Download and install - Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition (install the IDE if asked)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/downloads/

Download and install - Microsoft ® Windows Server® 2003 R2 Platform SDK Web Install
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Download and install - Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2005 Express Editions Service Pack 1
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Important: go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/expre ... usingpsdk/ and follow the directions in Step 4 to update the corewin_express.vsprops file.

Open Visual C++ and go to Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->VC++ Directories
On the right there will be a list of paths. There is also a drop-down list on the top right (Show directories for:)
Make sure to fill in the correct paths for the paths for the Executable files, Include files, and Library files sections. To change a path, double click the path in the list then click ... on the right to navigate to the path requested. When finished entering the paths, click Ok

Here's an example of what the modifed sections might look like:




Load, Configure and Compile AutoHotkey Source

Go to http://www.autohotkey.com/download/ and download the latest AutoHotkey source code (note: version 1.0.46.15 was used in this example)

Run the downloaded file and unzip the project into a new folder in your /My Documents/Visual Studio 2005/Projects/ folder
(example: C:\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\ahksrc104615)

Go to File->Open->Project/Solution... in VC++ then browse and open the AutoHotkey.sln file in the source folder where the AutoHotkey source was extracted. That will start a Conversion wizard. Click Next to proceed and convert the project. Since I still have the original from the download, I chose no when asked if I wanted to create a backup. Once the project has finished converting, a report can optionally be displayed. AutoHotkey.sln should show that it was converted successfully and the AutoHotkey and lib_pcre Projects should have a list of conversion issues.

In the Solution Explorer pane (on the left in the IDE), browse to the file stdafx.h and double-click on it to open the file in the right pane
on the line below the existing lineadd the following line:then save the file (use the save icon at the top left - 4th from the left - in the IDE).

In the file menu:
Navigate to Build->Configuration Manager and change the Active solution configuration to Release using the drop-down list provided then click close


Next, Navigate to Project->AutoHotkey Properties...

Under Configuration Properties->C/C++->Precompiled Headers
change Create/Use Precompiled Header to say Create Precompiled Header (/Yc)

Under Configuration Properties->C/C++->General
change Treat Warnings As Errors to NO

Under Configuration Properties->C/C++->Advanced
change Omit Default Library Names to Yes(/ZI)

Under Configuration Properties->C/C++->Advanced
change Calling Convention to something else then change it back to _cdecl(/Gd)

Under Configuration Properties->Linker->Input
remove LibCMT; from the Ignore Specific Library line

Under Configuration Properties->Linker->Optimization
change Link Time Code Generation to Use Link Time Code Generation (/ltcg)

(note: these settings will likely need to be changed for each solution configuration - Debug Release, SC, etc... if you change to use a different Active solution configuration later)

Open Notepad and edit the file AutoHotkey.rc in the /source/resources/ folder in the AutoHotkey source directory. Look for the line
and change it to

then save the file and close Notepad.

In the Solution Explorer pane on the left in the IDE in the /Source Files folder, browse to script_autoit.cpp and double-click to open it in the right pane. In the file menu: navigate to Edit->Go To... then type in 1785 for the line number and click Ok. Change line 1785 from

to

then save the file (use the icon at top in the IDE...)

Go to http://upx.sourceforge.net/ , download the win32 console version of UPX version 3.00 , then extract upx.exe to the AutoHotkey source folder
(to the same folder as AutoHotkey.sln) or to a system path.

Finally, in the file menu of the IDE, navigate to Build->Build Solution (or to Build->Rebuild Solution if you had preiously attempted to build AutoHotkey) and compile AutoHotkey

If all goes well the end of the output should be similar to:


If everything went ok, the compiled file will be in the /Release folder in the Project directory (example: C:\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\ahksrc104615\Release)

If AutoHotkey doesn't compile ok then I may have missed adding a step or two in the steps above. Please let me know if that seems to be the case and/or if something needs clarification so that I can update this post.

If you're having difficulties or have questions then feel free to ask.

Thanks. Enjoy

Edit: corrected typo: stafx.h should have been stdafx.h

Thanks for putting all this together. Finally there's a free compiler that doesn't require a major overhaul of the AutoHotkey source.

I've moved this topic from "General Chat" to "Scripts" because it seems more appropriate here.

Thanks Chris . I wasn't sure where to post this. Also, thanks for the tips in getting things to compile. Now it's time to play...

An alternate method to using Notepad to comment out the manifest line in the AutoHotkey.rc file is to change the Project Options instead. To make the change:

In the file menu in the IDE navigate to Project->Properties then to Configuration Properties->Linker->Manifest File then change Generate Manifest to No

This change will also reduce the exe size slightly (from 254464 to 251904).

Thanks corrupt for this comprehensive wrap up. Now I only have to learn C/C++ :) (fixed two small typos in your posts.)

I hope that this will lower the barrier for people who know C/C++ to help and add development time to AHK.

_________________
Ciao
toralf

Great, it was a long awaited capability.
I will try as soon as I can.

_________________
vPhiLho := RegExReplace("Philippe Lhoste", "^(\w{3})\w*\s+\b(\w{3})\w*$", "$1$2")

Sticky?

I doubt it will interest many AHK users...
But this surely should be linked from somewhere in the site (perhaps next the download source code link, or just in some ReadMe.txt in the download file).

The users? Who cares about the users? Its about attracting developers to have a look on ahk and maybe help Chris develop AHK (if this is in his interesst).

@Chris:
If someone would create a working copy for gcc would you be willing to change the source so that its gcc compatible "out of the box" ?

Edit: Ohh and is there any place i can talk to you in realtime like irc or im?

Oh, FINALY somebody sane here. Gratz foom about deduction.

_________________

Aargh, I just see this after trying to compile SciTE with VS 2005 and discovering via Google bribes of the steps described in the above link...
Don't follow only the Step 4, but all the steps (well, you gave the first two in your excellent article).

_________________
vPhiLho := RegExReplace("Philippe Lhoste", "^(\w{3})\w*\s+\b(\w{3})\w*$", "$1$2")

Grumpy, thanks for the suggestion. In the next release of the source code, I'll include a file "How to compile.txt":Corrupt: To make things even easier for people, perhaps you can provide a ready-made solution/project file for Visual C++ Express. On the other hand, maybe it would just get out-of-date too quickly and be too much work for you to keep up-to-date.

It depends on the nature and extent of the changes (when I last checked a couple years ago, it seemed likely that the changes would be extensive). Also, I'd be against any changes that increase the size of AutoHotkey.exe or reduce its performance.

Thanks . I gave instructions for step 3 also (with images ) but does it seem like it might be better to suggest modifying the VCProjectEngine.dll.express.config file instead? I haven't tried that method yet.

I don't mind since I'll likely try and keep up to date anyway but I might end up lagging behind the official release once in a while.

by uncommenting #ifdef _MSC_VER from stdafx.h i get the error count down to 13 (missing definitions/declarations).


for the *toi64 functions and maybe the other ones some on a mailing list mentioned that its missing in the headers but he can declare it in its app and link it against the appropriate library.
quote from : http://osdir.com/ml/gnu.mingw.announce/ ... 00019.html


As for the speed/size tradeoff against msvc we have to see when its done .

Edit: Ohh i forgot to mention that i had to replace all occurences of __forceinline with inline since gcc ain't happy about that.