Notepad++ MSVC IDE

       

Open source alternative for MS Visual Studio, powered by cl compiler. Featuring no project files, simple build process, "soft" and "hard" debuggers and mingw-like error output styling.

How to build

Just double-click the msvc_build.cmd file. Yep. As easy as this. Well, that is, if you have your Visual Studio installed, of course. And if your VS vcvars64.bat file is located at this path:

set "bat_dir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat"

If not, first of all, make sure the Visual Studio is installed. In the setup wizard you will see a huge list of useless features and bloat. Only the C++ build tools are actually needed. Switch to Individual components and try to find this in the humongous list:

MSVC vXXX - VS 202X C++ x64/x86 build tools (Latest)

After this you will have to merely locate the vcvars64.bat file and copy-paste the path to it into msvc_build.cmd. Then just launch it and wait until it does all the job for you. Yes, you don't even need to install or open the Visual Studio IDE itself. Ever.

How to setup

1. Add Notepad++.exe to your system PATH variable.

2. Install Customize Toolbar plugin:

3. Use appdata/roaming/npp/shortcuts.xml in this repo as an example, you can integrate all or only some of the shortcuts. Most of them are self-explanatory. The most important being: Build C++ file - to actually be able to build .cpp files, Build all libs - useful for rebuilding many static libraries in defined order, Add keywords - uses nppautos.exe to override default cpp.xml autocompletion file with your custom functions placed in the npp_autos.h (you might want to back up default cpp.xml). What macros do:

   • REGEX_MARK_ESCAPED_CH - marks escaped characters (\n\r\x etc.)
   • FUNCS_TO_DECLS - converts function definitions to declarations
   • FUNCS_TO_DEFINS - converts function declarations to definitions
   • PATH_TO_STR_LIT - converts windows path to C++ string literal
   • HTML_CODE_ENTAG - encases selected text into HTML <code> tag
   • STR_LITERAL - encases string literal into L()
   • WSTR_LITERAL - encases wide string literal into WL()

4. Copy the contents of appdata/roaming/npp/plugins/config repo folder into your plugins/config folder located in C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Notepad++\plugins\config. Relaunch Notepad++ for changes to take effect.

5. Install Build Tools for Visual Studio 2022 (YES, you don't even need the bloated IDE itself!) or if you have Visual Studio already installed, skip.

6. Set up environment variables, type in your Start menu: x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022, launch it. If nothing is found, you will have to go digging in your Program Files directory to find C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Auxiliary\Build\vcvars64.bat.

7. Copy and paste following lines into the console. After each command, Ctrl+V the result into your cmd/msvc_build.cmd (remember, msvc_build.cmd located in the root of this repo is version specifically designed for building git repo and has no iteration with Notepad++) file, after the @echo off line:

echo set "PATH=%PATH%" | clip
echo set "INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%" | clip
echo set "LIB=%LIB%" | clip
echo set "LIBPATH=%LIBPATH%" | clip

9. Alternatively, you can set this environmental variable permanently, if you want (should result in a few milliseconds faster builds). Press Win+R, enter rundll32.exe sysdm.cpl,EditEnvironmentVariables. In the bottom sub-window locate Path variable and then add extra variables that was injected by the Visual Studio in the correct order (for this, compare your original Path to one you got from the VS console). Also add INCLUDE, LIB and LIBPATH variables separately from Path. VS documentation does not encourage this, but I never ran into any issues in a long time of using this strategy.

10. In the cmd/msvc_build.cmd modify this lines to lead to your custom .h and .lib files so that you can use them for a program in any folder:

set "inc_dir=/I D:\P\MT\"
set "lib_dir=/LIBPATH:D:\P\MT\"

11. Set up your folder structure to make it the most convenient to use this IDE. I can give you and example of my own structure. P contains all the programs I ever created in one place. MT (Micro Tests) folder contains loads of my tiny programs/utilities/libraries that could be used by any "big" program in P. msvc_build.cmd file can be placed into MT\cmd folder. You can also add MT\ext folder and place all the external (not written by you personally) libraries/headers there, then have some wrapper headers in your MT folder that will include all the external headers/libs. For example, MT\ext\curl\curl.h then in your MT folder you can have wrapper header curl.h that will have #include "ext\curl\curl.h" this way you will never ever have to worry about changing your include/lib directory ever again.

12. It's super easy, barely an inconvenience to add icon and/or manifest to your program, fast. All you have to do, is to create res\ico / res\manifest folder in your program's root folder and put icon/manifest there that will exactly match the program's .cpp file name (i.e. foo.cpp > foo.ico / foo.manifest). The CMD script will take care of all the annoying parts of actually generating and compiling and linking resource files. Oh, and you can put main.ico / main.manifest in the res\ico / res\manifest folder. This will get used by default for all your programs without any dedicated program_name.ico / program_name.manifest files. You can also create res\rc folder and put custom program_name.rc files there. If such a file will be detected, it will be used instead of generating automatic .rc file.

13. cmd/msvc_build.cmd uses 3 little utilities: errlogkill, eline2npp and vcstyle. You should place them in the folder included into PATH variable, or hardcore absolute paths to them in the cmd/msvc_build.cmd. What errlogkill does, it, basically, just sends Windows message to the Notepad++ that forces it to save current file and it also sends termination messages to the error/warning console windows. This frees you from having to constantly remember to SAVE THE FILE after you quickly corrected some error, which greatly aids workflow. All you have to do is press the Build CPP file button. eline2npp is responsible for automatically jumping to the first or clicked error/warning, and highlighting it in Notepad++. vcstyle is a pipe that styles almost unreadable raw cl.exe output into mingw-like colour coded goodness.

14. You can integrate some or all of the custom context menu entries. Use appdata/roaming/npp/contextMenu and copy entries to your own. You can also copy some userDefineLang-s from there. It has styling for .cod ASM output files, .log files and markdown.

15. Optionally, you can install the theme I use too: appdata/roaming/npp/themes/VS2019-Dark.xml. It was support for some of the custom types/instructions I created. The theme is based on VS2019-Dark-Npp by hellon8.

16. Last but not least, install sdpp plugin. It is very important as it adds many useful features but also serves as communication link between Notepad++ and eline2npp and sddb debugging library. Just copy sdpp.dll into your Notepad++ plugins_folder\sdpp\sdpp.dll and restart NPP.

17. Profit! You are ready for rapid C/C++ development in Notepad++!

How to create project file?

There is no project files. No need for them at all. You can control compilation of individual programs easily from the source file itself by including comment in the top of your source file like this:

// CONSOLE DBG NOPT

CONSOLE - compile program as console application (default - SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS)

DSEH - disable C++ STD SEH handling (if you need to __try() __except() in functions with objects)

NOPT - disable all optimisations

NW - disable all warnings (default - wall)

SLIB - do not link, assemble into static library

DLIB - compile as dynamic library (DLL)

DLLIE - produce DLL export and import libraries (default - only .dll is produced)

ASM - instead of compiling to .exe file, open MASM code created by the compiler in Notepad++ (aka. your own Compiler Explorer)

DBG - compile in debug mode and launch resulting executable with sddbg debugger attached

NLAUNCH - just compile and link, no automatic launch

EPMAIN - use main instead of wmain as an entry point

The idea here is like this - cmd/msvc_build.cmd is your base "master" project file script that is used in all the programs. And each program tweaks it's behaviour from it's own source code. This avoids the need to have useless files lying around and makes all your projects consistent.

Full video

Other stuff

What is p|DC|TB|P;?

Note: building single .exe / .dll from multiple .cpp files is currently not supported. I didn't had any need for this feature yet, but I plan to add it in the future, when the need arises.