Building OpenCPN in Visual C++ 2008 Express - Errors

[steve314]

I've downloaded OpenCPN and want to build it under Windows. I followed the instructions on the OpenCPN website but when I try to compile the opencpn project I get, among other things, errors like this:

error C2440: 'type cast' : cannot convert from 'const wxCharBuffer' to 'LPCWSTR'

It uses this wxWidgets library for developing cross-platform Windows applications, which I've installed, as described in the developers' guide. So I don't know why it doesn't build.

Anyone got any ideas?

Cheers,

Steve

[Netsurfer]

Originally Posted by steve314

Anyone got any ideas?

I guess your problem has something to do with the needed Unicode support in wxWidgets for OpenCPN.

But I cannot remember exactly what to do - it was a little bit tricky (because even the documentation were wrong in some places).

Maybe this thread starting from this post may help you, too.

Sorry that I could not help you more ...

Good luck,
Gunther

[PjotrC]

For 2.4.506 I managed to get a clean compile and build with Unicode support etc. (except for post-build processing in PACKAGE, but that's another story).

For 2.4.523 I wanted to do better... so I made a fresh GIT repository, and followed the book on building. I still had to select wx28 Unicode libraries in the Linker command line by hand, and set project character sets to Unicode (why?).

During compile, I get the following warnings:

Building Custom Rule C:/Users/Tomek/opencpn/CMakeLists.txt
CMake does not need to re-run because C:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\buildwin\CMakeFiles\generate.stamp is up-to-date.
Compiling...
wvschart.cpp
tinyxmlparser.cpp
tinyxmlerror.cpp
...
...
routeman.cpp
pluginmanager.cpp
c:\users\tomek\opencpn\include\ocpn_plugin.h(227) : warning C4275: non dll-interface class 'wxObject' used as base for dll-interface class 'PlugInChartBase'
        C:\wx\include\wx/object.h(408) : see declaration of 'wxObject'
        c:\users\tomek\opencpn\include\ocpn_plugin.h(226) : see declaration of 'PlugInChartBase'
c:\users\tomek\opencpn\include\ocpn_plugin.h(283) : warning C4251: 'PlugInChartBase::m_FullPath' : class 'wxString' needs to have dll-interface to be used by clients of class 'PlugInChartBase'
        C:\wx\include\wx/string.h(659) : see declaration of 'wxString'
c:\users\tomek\opencpn\include\ocpn_plugin.h(288) : warning C4251: 'PlugInChartBase::m_EdDate' : class 'wxDateTime' needs to have dll-interface to be used by clients of class 'PlugInChartBase'
        C:\wx\include\wx/datetime.h(141) : see declaration of 'wxDateTime'
c:\users\tomek\opencpn\include\ocpn_plugin.h(291) : warning C4251: 'PlugInChartBase::m_Name' : class 'wxString' needs to have dll-interface to be used by clients of class 'PlugInChartBase'
...
...
Generating Code...
Compiling resources...
Microsoft (R) Windows (R) Resource Compiler Version 6.1.6723.1
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.
Linking...
   Creating library C:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\buildwin\Release\opencpn.lib and object C:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\buildwin\Release\opencpn.exp
Embedding manifest...

Results
          
Build log was saved at "file://c:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\buildwin\opencpn.dir\Release\BuildLog.htm"
opencpn - 0 error(s), 72 warning(s)

The warnings pattern is repeated for all occurences of ocpn_plugin.h. All seems to work, except plugins - I get instant crash when plugins are present:

12:41:06: NMEA AutoPilot Port is....None
12:41:06: PlugInManager searching for PlugIns in location C:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\data\plugins
12:41:06: PlugInManager: Loading PlugIn: C:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\data\plugins/dashboard_pi.dll
12:48:36:

Vista, VC++

Thanks in advance for hints...

Piotr

[SethDart]

Which version of wxWidgets are you using?

[PjotrC]

wxWidgets 2.8.10, since September 2010 unchanged

[SethDart]

Well, my only guess is missing "DLL Unicode Debug" or "DLL Unicode Release" for wxWidgets or eventually wrong PATH for the compiled dll

[PjotrC]

Thanks, I will double-check the libraries...
What about compile warnings?

[PjotrC]

I've followed balp's hint that 523 is not much different from 506, so I gave up trying to set up new environment from scratch and moved old 506's vcproject files over to new sources. A bit of hand combat and I am able to compile and run. Just building the PACKAGE still breaks on

# Run command: "C:/Program Files/NSIS/makensis.exe" "C:/Users/Tomek/opencpn/build/_CPack_Packages/win32/NSIS/project.nsi"
# Output:
MakeNSIS v2.46 - Copyright 1995-2009 Contributors
See the file COPYING for license details.
Credits can be found in the Users Manual.
Processing config: 
Processing plugin dlls: "C:\Program Files\NSIS\Plugins\*.dll"
 - AdvSplash::show

.......

 - nsExec::ExecToLog
 - nsExec::ExecToStack
!define: "MUI_INSERT_NSISCONF"=""
Changing directory to: "C:\Users\Tomek\opencpn\build\_CPack_Packages\win32\NSIS"
Processing script file: "C:/Users/Tomek/opencpn/build/_CPack_Packages/win32/NSIS/project.nsi"
Invalid command: /*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Error in script "C:/Users/Tomek/opencpn/build/_CPack_Packages/win32/NSIS/project.nsi" on line 1 -- aborting creation process

I think that project.nsi is generated in UTF-8, while the automated process does not expect this.... running it by hand seems to work.

I guess this is still only a temporary solution, but at least I am able to do something.

[nohal]

Piotr,
I've never seen the problems you're experiencing, so I can just guess...
Is your NSIS the unicode version that's in the git repository? The official one does not work... If you install the one in git, don't forget to run the reg patch, that's also there.

Pavel