Building the OGRE dependencies

Building the OGRE dependencies

Introduction

One of the main issues we're dealing with in Summoning Wars is the difficulty encountered while getting the developers up to speed with the long process of building the necessary tool-set.
This is intended as a helper for setting up a build environment for projects using the same tools that Summoning Wars is using, such as OGRE and CEGUI.

Ogre has some various dependencies (some optional), that provide support for loading images, fonts, handling inputs, compression.
For some time now, the default method of delivering the dependencies has started using the same mechanism as Ogre itself, via a mercurial repository hosted on BitBucket.

WinCC OA 3.11 C++ Extensions (Part 4)

Testing the WinCC OA extension in an WinCC-OA control script

This is part 3 of the tutorial. You can view other parts here:
Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.

If you create a WinCC-OA extension, the final goal will be to allow new functionality available to WinCC-OA control scripts and panels. The extension is built into a DLL, which can be imported in WinCC-OA code, allowing new functions to be used.

WinCC OA 3.11 C++ Extensions (Part 3)

Options for starting the Visual Studio solution

This is part 3 of the tutorial. You can view other parts here:
Part 1.
Part 2.

You can go with 2 approaches when you start the created Visual Studio solution. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
The first is based on running batch files in a manner similar to the one used to setup the solution in the first place. Using this approach you don't pollute your list of environment variables.
The second is based on creating user environment variables, which are the exact same variables that the batch files would set. The only difference being that you get to keep them all the time. I favor this approach, as it's more user friendly.

WinCC OA 3.11 C++ Extensions (Part 2)

Creating the Visual Studio project for the extension.

This is part 2 of the tutorial. Click here for part 1.

While it would have been nice to have a more modern cross platform build system supported out of the box (like CMake), the currently available solution still does its job. And once you understand its inner workings, you can take some shortcuts in creating projects.

For Windows, the WinCC-OA api directory provides several template projects, solutions and batches to use for creating new WinCC-OA items:

• control extensions
• drivers
• driver plugins
• EWOs (widgets)
• managers

WinCC OA 3.11 C++ Extensions (Part 1)

Intro

Quite some time ago, I made a short tutorial for creating PVSS C++ extensions. As PVSS itself made a change in name, and several changes in its version number, it's about time for an update.
The initial tutorial was split in several parts:
- Part 1
- Part 2
- Part 3
I will try to keep the same format this time around as well, while refining the process itself.

Summoning Wars 0.5.5 released

Finally: release day for version 0.5.5. Hurray! Get it here.
This is the first one I have contributed to. Hopefully, many more to come!
In case you missed my previous post and you did not check the game out, Summoning Wars is an open source diablo-like RPG (role playing game).

Summoning Wars

Wow, it sure has been a long time since my last posting...
More than 1 year down the road, I finally got back in the mood for coding. And it seems that Serpents will be left somewhat behind... I've tried so many times to start it anew, each time discovering new stuff to add. But I've always managed to lose interest in it halfway through. I hope things will change now, as I've started contributing to an open-source project: Summoning Wars.