# Requirements - Visual Studio 2019/2022 (2022 recommended). Install the "Desktop development with C++" workload. - Windows 10 SDK (most recent version recommended) - (Optional) To build for ARM64, the following Visual Studio components should be installed: - MSVC v143 - VS 2022 C++ ARM64 build tools (Latest) - (Optional) To build with Clang (using the Debug-Clang/Release-Clang solution configurations), the following Visual Studio components should be installed: - C++ Clang tools for Windows - (Optional) To build the installer, WiX 3.11 and the relevant Visual Studio extension should be installed. Download links for both of those items can be found on the [WiX website](https://wixtoolset.org/docs/wix3/). # Setup [vcpkg](https://vcpkg.io/) is used to manage dependencies. Before you can build Explorer++, you'll first need to initialize vcpkg: - Clone this repo with submodules enabled: ``` git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/derceg/explorerplusplus.git cd explorerplusplus ``` - Run the vcpkg bootstrapper: - cmd/PowerShell: `.\Explorer++\ThirdParty\vcpkg\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat` - git bash/posix shell: `./Explorer++/ThirdParty/vcpkg/bootstrap-vcpkg.sh` The relevant packages should then be automatically installed during the first build. # Compiling Open `Explorer++\Explorer++.sln`. From within Visual Studio, select `Debug` > `Start Without Debugging` to compile and run the program. # Translations Building the program in release mode will also build all of the translations. The resulting DLLs can then be used with Explorer++. # Tests The `TestExplorer++` project contains unit tests for the solution as a whole. The GoogleTest package is installed via vcpkg, so provided vcpkg has been initialized and you've been able to build the solution, you should just need to build the `TestExplorer++` project, then run the tests via the Visual Studio Test Explorer. Note that the `TestHelper` project is older and is in the process of being removed. It doesn't currently compile and shouldn't be used.