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Plugin programming for beginners / Tutorial
http://forum.lcdinfo.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1009
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Author:  Henri [ Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:11 ]
Post subject:  Plugin programming for beginners / Tutorial

Syridian asked if it would be possible to start a tutorial about making plugins that would be targeted for complete newbies on the subject. So why not try and see what we can come up with. ;)

The idea is to give step by step instructions of what has to be done. First thing would of course be setting up a working programming environment and build some ready made plugin source.

Discussion related to this tutorial can be posted here:
http://forum.lcdinfo.com/viewtopic.php?t=1010

To be continued...

Author:  Henri [ Sun Jan 23, 2005 3:13 ]
Post subject: 

So to get started with this we want to add something here.

Step 1: Setting up the development environment

I'm currently using Visual C++ 6 so I think that's the best option for me to write about. First you need to install Visual Studio or just Visual C++. I have also installed the latest service pack for Visual C++ (SP5 I think) (-find a link here-). I have also installed the latest Platform SDK (-add link here-). I don't know if you need these but at least they are now mentioned here in case some problems are seen without them.

There shouldn't really be anything else than installing Visual C++ to have a working environment for compiling a plugin.


Step 2: Compiling a plugin

Here is a plugin source example that can be used to test if compiling and building a plugin is working:
http://www.skippari.net/lcd/alpha/plugi ... plugin.zip

Plugin SDK is also needed to succesfully compile the plugin source code.

To compile the example plugin source the directory tree to use should be something like this:
\lcdinfostuff\sdk\
\lcdinfostuff\example_plugin\


Now just go to the \example_plugin\ directory and load the example_plugin.dsp project file and Visual Studio tells that it has created a corresponding workspace file and loads it instead.

Now if you just go to Build->Build example_plugin.dll or press F7 Visual Studio should build a working plugin from the source code. If there were any errors then we'll figure out what is causing them.
If building went through without errors you can find the dll file from the Debug directory. You can also copy the dll to the LCDInfo directory and see from log.txt if LCDInfo notices that it has been added.


Step 3: What exactly is in the plugin source code

Next time...

If you have any problem following these steps let me know as they haven't been tested yet.

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