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Hello FD developers,

FlowDesigner now runs under Windows natively. The latest code for FlowDesigner 0.9.2 is in the SVN.

Contents 1 Background to Windows development 2 What is required : 2.1 Recommended Compilation Setup 3 How to compile 4 What works 5 What needs to be done 6 Please contribute!

Background to Windows development

The compilation of flowdesigner and manyears on windows requires several tools that may be unfamiliar to Windows developers. The following section titled "What is required" lists the software tools necessary for windows compilation. It will be helpful to you if you familiarize yourself with the use of these tools before you begin. Also note: several of these tools do not currently work on Vista.

What is required :

• Latest SVN update of FlowDesigner

It is strongly recommended that you download the latest SVN package.

• CMake 2.6.0 or higher (http://www.cmake.org/HTML/Download.html)

CMake is used to create make files that will then be used to compile the project. In other words cmake makes the make files. The cmake download comes with a GUI that can aid in the creation of these files. To use this GUI go to the CMake directory (the default is c:\Program Files\CMake 2.6\) and double click the cmake-gui.exe icon.

• MinGW 5.1.4 (http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml)
• make, gdb (ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/gnu/mingw/)
• libxml2 and all dependencies (http://www.zlatkovic.com/pub/libxml/)
• pthread-win32 (http://sourceware.org/pthreads-win32/)
• perl (http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/)
• Qt 4.4 (or later) Open Source Edition (http://www.trolltech.com/developer/downloads/qt/windows). MinGW version packaged with Qt is too old. Download the latest version as mentionned above.
  • Ignore the warning on GCC version not supported when installing Qt.

Recommended Compilation Setup

1. Latest SVN update of FlowDesigner. You can use TortoiseSVN to check out the code.
2. Install Dev-C++ from : http://sourceforge.net/projects/dev-cpp/. Dev-C++ will be used to install supporting packages. It is not used as a development environment, underlying compiler, or for any other reason. Use external MinGW.
   1. You must specify that your MinGW setup is installed in C:\MinGW\
3. Update / install packages using Dev-C++. To do that open Dev-C++, go to tools, check for updates, set select devpak server to devpaks.org, click the Check for updates button. Download and install the following packages:
   1. LibXml2 2.6.19 (or latest version, some of them are broken. We found that the biggest one in size seems to work better)
   2. libiconv 1.9.1 (or latest version)
   3. pthread-win32 2.8 (or latest version)
   4. zlib 1.2.3 (or latest version)
   5. make (latest version)
   6. gdb (latest version)
4. Add C:\Dev-Cpp\bin;C:\Program Files\CMake 2.6\bin;c:\Qt\4.4.x\bin to your system PATH. Note make sure the version numbers are correct for your downloads.
   1. Go to Configuration Panel --> System ---> Advanced tab --> click on environment variables to do that.
5. Install NSIS installer from http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page
6. Install perl from http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/

You are now ready for compilation!

How to compile

• start a terminal
• Generate the makefiles with the cmake mingw generator:

cmake -G "MinGW Makefiles"  

Alternatively, use the cmake GUI described above. Set the source code directory and the where to build binaries directory to the directory containing the Flowdesigner CMakeLists.txt file. Click the check box for titled "Show Advanced Entries." Click the configure button. The configure process will likely fail and will request the location of specific dependencies. Look through the entries in the cmake GUI and set the location of the dependencies to their correct directory. You will know you have correctly configured the project when the GUI states "Configuring Done"

• Install :

make install (The default directory is C:\Program Files\FlowDesigner. This can be changed in the root CMakeList.txt)
run flowdesigner.exe from C:\Proram Files\FlowDesigner\bin. 

You may need to type the following command instead, "C:\MinGW\bin\mingw32-make.exe" install. The form of the command may depend on the setup of your system. Successful compilation and install will result in the placement of flowdesigner.exe in the /usr/local/flowdesigner/bin directory.

What works

• All toolboxes except the octave and lapack toolboxes should work.
• Basic installation scripts
• Basic Qt GUI (unfinished)

What needs to be done

1. Complete the Qt GUI. So far, I have been very pleased with Qt4.
2. Create Qt probes.
3. Add dll support to batchflow. Only the libflow library is linked to batchflow.exe right now.
4. Complete installation of files (headers, networks, etc.)
5. Build a better installer for Windows.
6. Update the web site!
7. "Online" documentation.

Please contribute!

Any contributions are welcomed!

Please contact us at mailto:flowdesigner-devel@lists.sourceforge.net