• Introduction
  • Dev Environment Setup
  • Developing Apps
  • Data Handling
  • Device Capabilities
  • Testing & Debugging
  • Extending
Warning Older Docs! - You are viewing documentation for a previous released version of RhoMobile Suite.

Build for Windows

Setup

Follow the instructions for setting up the development environment for building Windows applications.

By default the application is built with most recent supported version of Visual Studio installed in the system (either 2012 or 2008). To explicitly specify the version of Visual Studio add msvc parameter to win32 section of build.yml:

win32:
  msvc: 2012
  • use either 2012 or 2008

Build application from the command line

To build and run the application issue command:

$ rake run:win32

To clean all temporary and binary files execute command:

$ rake clean:win32

Create application installer for Windows

Download NSIS installer tool.

Add path to NSIS complier to ‘rhobuild.yml’ in rhodes folder:

On 32-bit platform:

env:
  paths:
    nsis: C:/Program Files/NSIS/makensis.exe

On 64-bit platform:

env:
  paths:
    nsis: C:/Program Files (x86)/NSIS/makensis.exe

Readme, license and icon

  • Application License can be provided by application developer. If file with LICENSE.txt name exists in the root of application folder when Installer will display separate page to confirm the license.
  • Application Readme file can be provided by application developer. If file with README.html name exists in the root of application folder when Installer will display show readme at the final page of the Installer
  • Application Icon should be used for Installer and application exe

To build installer bundle use command:

$ rake device:win32:production

There is separate rake command for Windows XP Embedded platform. To build installer bundle use command:

$ rake device:winxpe:production

After the build process is finished you can find the installer bundle named <application-name>-setup.exe in <application-root>/bin/target/win32 folder.

Logging

Rholog.txt is placed in <rhodes folder>\platform\wm\bin\win32\rhodes\Debug\rho

How to enable HTTPS protocol

Setup the build environment for Qt libraries

  • If Python 2.6 or 2.7 is not installed on your system, download and install Python 2.7 (16 Mb)
  • If Perl 5 is not installed on your system, download and install Perl 5.16
  • Make sure that Perl, Ruby and Python are present at the beginning of the PATH variable, e.g. C:\Perl\bin;C:\Ruby\bin;C:\Python;...
  • Download the Qt 5.1.1 source (280 MB) and extract the archive, e.g. into C:\Qt\Qt5-src (rename qt-everywhere-opensource-src-5.1.1 to Qt5-src)
  • Download the ICU 52.1 source (24 MB) and extract the archive, e.g. into C:\Qt\icu

Visual Studio 2012

First of all you may download our build of the Qt binaries that we use in our development process and in production builds of RhoSimulator. Exctract downloaded archive to C:\Qt (Qt5-rhoxp folder will be created) and set QTDIR system variable to C:\Qt\Qt5-rhoxp.

You may use our precompiled binaries of Qt libraries for development and testing, but your production builds may require your own build of Qt libraries (you need to consult with Qt and OpenSSL license agreements to begin with).

So, if your application needs HTTPS or Windows XP compatibility, then you need to build the Qt libraries for Visual Studio 2012 as described below:

  • Follow the instructions for setting up the build environment for Qt libraries.
  • Open Control Panel » System » Advanced system settings » Environment Variables and then:
    • Create new (or update existing) system variable QTDIR = C:\Qt\Qt5-ssl (this will be the installation folder for the compiled Qt libraries)
    • Either close all command prompts and Visual Studio instances, or reboot the computer so the new settings take effect.

  • Open C:\Qt\icu\source\allinone\allinone.sln solution in Visual Studio 2012 and:

    • Agree to update all projects to VS2012 toolset
    • Select projects from cal down to makeconv, select Project -> Properties from top menu, select Configuration = “All Configurations”, Platform = “Win32”, go to Configuration Properties -> General, set “Visual Studio 2012 - Windows XP (v110_xp)” in Platform Toolset field, and click Apply
    • Select projects from pkgdata down to uconv, repeat the previous step, and close the Properties window
    • Select configuration Release with platform Win32 in the toolbar and build the solution, close Visual Studio 2012 after build is finished

  • Patch Qt source code to make it Windows XP compatible:

    • Open C:\Qt\Qt5-src\qtbase\qmake\Makefile.win32 file in text editor and add -D_USING_V110_SDK71_ option to CFLAGS_BARE variable (e.g. at line 44 after -DUNICODE)
    • Open C:\Qt\Qt5-src\qtbase\mkspecs\win32-msvc2012\qmake.conf and:
      • Add -D_USING_V110_SDK71_ option to QMAKE_CFLAGS variable (line 24)
      • Change QMAKE_LFLAGS_CONSOLE variable (at line 72) to /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE,5.01
      • Change QMAKE_LFLAGS_WINDOWS variable (at line 73) to /SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS,5.01

  • Create C:\Qt\Qt5-build folder and in that folder create new build.bat file with the following content (change the paths according to your system setup and folders you have extracted the archives into):

    call "%VS110COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86
set CL=/MP /D_USING_V110_SDK71_ %CL%
set PATH=%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1A\Bin;%PATH%
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Qt\icu\bin;C:\Qt\Qt5-src\gnuwin32\bin
set INCLUDE=%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1A\Include;%INCLUDE%
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;C:\Qt\icu\include
set LIB=%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1A\Lib;%LIB%
set LIB=%LIB%;C:\Qt\icu\lib
mkdir qtbase\include\QtZlib
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-src\qtbase\include\QtZlib\*.h qtbase\include\QtZlib
mkdir qtbase\src\3rdparty\zlib
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-src\qtbase\src\3rdparty\zlib\*.h qtbase\src\3rdparty\zlib
call ..\Qt5-src\configure.bat -opensource -confirm-license ^
 -prefix C:/Qt/Qt5-ssl -debug-and-release -platform win32-msvc2012 -mp ^
 -icu -shared -c++11 -make libs -nomake tests -nomake examples -angle ^
 -qt-zlib -qt-libpng -qt-libjpeg -qt-freetype -openssl-linked ^
 -I <path-to-rhodes>/lib/extensions/openssl.so/ext/win32/include ^
 -L <path-to-rhodes>/lib/extensions/openssl.so/ext/win32/lib
nmake
nmake install
nmake clean
copy C:\Qt\icu\bin\icudt52.dll C:\Qt\Qt5-ssl\bin\
copy C:\Qt\icu\bin\icuin52.dll C:\Qt\Qt5-ssl\bin\
copy C:\Qt\icu\bin\icuuc52.dll C:\Qt\Qt5-ssl\bin\
copy "%VS110COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\bin\D3Dcompiler_46.dll" C:\Qt\Qt5-ssl\bin\

  • Open Visual Studio 2012 Command Prompt. This is accomplished using VS2012 x86 Native Tools Command Prompt in Apps view of Windows 8 OS. To build Qt libraries run in Visual Studio 2012 Command Prompt:

    > C:
> cd \Qt\Qt5-build
> build.bat

    Be aware that it will take a while to build the Qt libraries from sources (maybe few hours or even a day).

  • After the build process is completed exit Visual Studio 2012 Command Prompt

Now when you build your application the usual way, the HTTPS protocol support will be enabled automatically.

Visual Studio 2008

It’s recommended to build Windows desktop applications with Visual Studio 2012. However if you can’t use VS2012, then you need to use a custom build of the Qt libraries for Visual Studio 2008 (since there are no official binaries of Qt 5.1.1 libraries for VS2008).

First of all you may download our build of the Qt binaries that we use in our development and testing process. Exctract downloaded archive to C:\Qt (Qt5-vs2008 folder will be created) and set QTDIR system variable to C:\Qt\Qt5-vs2008.

You may use our precompiled binaries of Qt libraries for development and testing, but your production builds may require your own build of Qt libraries (you need to consult with Qt and OpenSSL license agreements to begin with).

To build your own binaries of the Qt libraries for Visual Studio 2008:

  • Follow the instructions for setting up the build environment for Qt libraries.
  • Install Microsoft Windows Platform 7.1 SDK
  • Install DirectX SDK
  • Install Cygwin, e.g. to C:\Cygwin (you will need it to compile ICU 52.1 libraries). Make sure you have installed make, bash, and dos2unix.
  • Open Control Panel » System » Advanced system settings » Environment Variables and then:
    • Create new (or update existing) system variable QTDIR = C:\Qt\Qt5-vs2008 (this will be the installation folder for the compiled Qt libraries)
    • Either close all command prompts and Visual Studio instances, or reboot the computer so the new settings take effect.

  • Open Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt. This is accomplished using Start » All Programs » Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 » Visual Studio Tools » Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt. To build ICU 52.1 libraries run in Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt:

    > set PATH=C:\Cygwin\bin;%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin;%PATH%
> set INCLUDE=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Include;%INCLUDE%
> set LIB=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Lib;%LIB%
> call "%VS90COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86
> cd \Qt\icu\source
> dos2unix *
> dos2unix -f configure
> bash ./runConfigureICU Cygwin/MSVC --prefix=/cygdrive/c/Qt/Qt5-icu
> make
> make check
> make install
    • After the build process is completed exit Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt. The ICU 52.1 libraries are now installed to C:\Qt\Qt5-icu, so you may safely delete C:\Qt\icu folder.

  • Create C:\Qt\Qt5-build folder and in that folder create new build.bat file with the following content (change the paths according to your system setup and folders you have extracted the archives into):

    call "%VS90COMNTOOLS%..\..\VC\vcvarsall.bat" x86
set CL=/MP %CL%
set PATH=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Bin;%PATH%
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Qt\Qt5-icu\bin;C:\Qt\Qt5-src\gnuwin32\bin
set INCLUDE=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Include;%INCLUDE%
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;C:\Qt\Qt5-icu\include
set LIB=%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.1\Lib;%LIB%
set LIB=%LIB%;C:\Qt\Qt5-icu\lib
mkdir qtbase\include\QtZlib
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-src\qtbase\include\QtZlib\*.h qtbase\include\QtZlib
mkdir qtbase\src\3rdparty\zlib
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-src\qtbase\src\3rdparty\zlib\*.h qtbase\src\3rdparty\zlib
call ..\Qt5-src\configure.bat -opensource -confirm-license ^
 -prefix C:/Qt/Qt5-vs2008 -debug-and-release -platform win32-msvc2008 -mp ^
 -icu -shared -c++11 -make libs -nomake tests -nomake examples -angle ^
 -qt-zlib -qt-libpng -qt-libjpeg -qt-freetype -openssl-linked ^
 -I <path-to-rhodes>/lib/extensions/openssl.so/ext/win32/include ^
 -L <path-to-rhodes>/lib/extensions/openssl.so/ext/win32/msvc2008/lib
nmake
nmake install
nmake clean
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-icu\bin\icudt52.dll C:\Qt\Qt5-vs2008\bin\
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-icu\bin\icuin52.dll C:\Qt\Qt5-vs2008\bin\
copy C:\Qt\Qt5-icu\bin\icuuc52.dll C:\Qt\Qt5-vs2008\bin\

  • Open Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt again. This is accomplished using Start » All Programs » Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 » Visual Studio Tools » Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt. To build Qt library run in Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt:

    > C:
> cd \Qt\Qt5-build
> build.bat

    Be aware that it will take a while to build the Qt libraries from sources (maybe few hours or even a day).

  • After the build process is completed exit Visual Studio 2008 Command Prompt

Now when you build your application the usual way, the HTTPS protocol support will be enabled automatically.

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