The easiest way to use Schism Tracker on Windows is to download one of the pre-built binaries. However, if you want to build it yourself, it isn't too tricky.
These instructions assume you are using 64-bit Windows to build a 64-bit Schism executable.
We will be using an environment called MSYS2, which provides all the packages we need in one place.
If you want correct version information to show, you must also have git installed and in your PATH.
Go to the URL http://msys2.github.io/ and download the 64-bit installer.
Once installed, follow these instructions to get up-to-date files. This process is also described in their web page, so in case of conflict, you might opt to follow their instructions.
Run the MSYS2 shell (a start menu shortcut should have been created) and update the pacman package manager:
pacman -Sy pacman
Follow the onscreen options and choose "yes" where prompted. Close the MSYS2 window. Run it again from the Start menu and update the system:
pacman -Syu
Again follow the instructions, chose "yes" where prompted, and close the MSYS2 window.
Run it again from the Start menu (note: the update process can, in some cases, break the start menu shortcut - in which case you may need to look in C:\msys64 (or wherever you installed MSYS2) and run msys2_shell.cmd) and update the rest with:
pacman -Su
Once you have the shell environment ready, it's time to get the compilers. Execute the following command:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain libtool autoconf automake make perl
If asked to "enter a selection", hit Enter to go with the default.
Also, you need the following specific dependencies:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 mingw-w64-x86_64-pkgconf mingw-w64-x86_64-libutf8proc
For optional FLAC sample loading, you'll also need the following dependency:
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-flac
Once you have installed these packages, close all your MSYS2 windows before continuing with the instructions.
MSYS2 installs three shortcut icons, one to run the MSYS2 shell, and two more that setup the environment to use either the 32bit compiler or the 64-bit compiler. We will be using the one called "MSYS2 MINGW64" throughout.
If you've lost the shortcuts, you can also start the 64bit compiler with
msys2_shell.cmd -mingw64
Open the 64-bit shell.
Download the Schismtracker sources (or clone the repo) and navigate to the
schismtracker-master folder (the one that contains README.md) using cd
Drive letters are mapped to /x , example C:/ is /c/, D:/ is /d/ ..., and so on. For example:
cd /c/Users/YourUserName/Downloads/schismtracker-master/
Reconfigure it:
autoreconf -i
(note: if you get a "possibly undefined macro: AM_PATH_SDL" error, you're
probably using the standard msys2 shell - either use the mingw start menu
shortcuts, or start msys2_shell.cmd with -mingw64 as mentioned above)
Make a folder to build the binary in:
mkdir build
Now move into the build subdir and run the configure script:
cd build
../configure
If you are doing ongoing development, you should enable Schism Tracker's
automated test suite. This is done by passing --enable-tests to
./configure.
../configure --enable-tests
The resulting Makefile will produce a second binary alongside
schismtracker.exe called schismtrackertests.exe:
$ make
(..)
$ ./schismtrackertest.exe
TEST: test_bshift_arithmetic ..................................... PASS (0 ms)
TEST: test_bshift_right_shift_negative ........................... PASS (0 ms)
TEST: test_bshift_left_shift_overflow ............................ PASS (0 ms)
Results: 3 passed, 0 failed
$
In this build mode, if you make a change that requires corresponding changes to tests, you discover immediately on the next build.
In order to build Schism, from the build folder, run:
make
You should now have an executable in the build folder that you can run from Windows Explorer, or with
./schismtracker.exe
After the first time, you can usually build Schism again without having to run
autoreconf or ../configure again, but if you run into problems, follow the
steps from "Configure schismtracker to build" onwards again.
You should regularly run automated tests during development work.
The configure script should give hints on what is missing to compile. If you've followed the steps, everything should already be in the right place, but in case it doesn't work, see the config.log file, which reports a detailed output (more than what is seen on the screen) that could help identify what is missing, or which option is not working.
When installing the toolchains, the gdb debugger is also installed. You can run this from the MSYS2 MINGW64 shell if you need to debug Schism.
To distribute the application, it is important to bundle the correct version of
the SDL.dll file with the executable. For a 64bit build, the file is located in
/msys2_path/mingw64/bin/SDL.dll
If you want to reduce the exe size (removing the debugging information), use the following command from MSYS2 MINGW64:
strip -g schismtracker.exe