This is a guide to get you started on coding for The Powder Toy. If you have any questions, just ask in the Discussion section on The Powder Toy forums.

It would help if you have programmed before, but it is fine if you never have.

This takes a while to setup, so be patient and follow the instructions carefully.

Its not recommended to begin coding elements until you are able to compile a clean source.

Good luck!

Visual Studio (Windows)

• Download Visual C++ 2010 Express because of it's great debugging and auto-code tools. It is completely free.
• Open Visual Studio. You should register it (you don't have to pay anything; it's free) if you plan on using it for more than 30 days. You need a Microsoft account to do this
• If you wish, (this should already be on by default), turn on line numbers by going to Tools > Options > Text Editor > C/C++, and turn on "Line numbers" in the Display subsection.

• Download something else: Required Libraries, and extract it right into your source code folder. This includes static libraries too, but be warned that these libraries may or may not work, and linking may take a very long time to complete)

• Open Visual Studio and press Press File > New > New Project from Existing Code.

• Choose the folder from your source code folder, and name the project. Click Next

• Choose Windows application project if it isn't selected already and leave everything unchecked. Click Next.

• Under Preprocessor definitions, type "WIN, X86, X86_SSE2, USE_SDL, RELEASE, GRAVFFT, LUACONSOLE" without the quotes

• Click Finish. The project will be created

• Under Build > Configuration Manager, open the drop-down box under "Active Solution Configuration:" and change it to "Release". (unless you have a good reason to keep it as Debug, which runs slower than Release). Compiling with DEBUG is currently very glitchy in tpt++, and you will get many crashes.

• Go to Project > (Name of your project) Properties.

• On the very top, where it says Configuration: Active(Release), open the dropdown and change it to All Configurations. This will make it easier if you want to switch to debug mode. If you don't ever want to, this step is optional

• Under Configuration Properties > General:
• Change Output Directory from

$(SolutionDir)$(Configuration)\

to

$(SolutionDir)Build\

(notice that there is no backslash between "$(SolutionDir)" and "Build\").

• Change Target Name to whatever name you want the compiled file to have, minus the ".exe" extension. (or just leave it be to have the file named as the project name)

• Under Configuration Properties > VC++ Directories:
• Open the drop down menu for Include Directories (if you don't see the arrow that opens the drop-down menu, try clicking on the line), click "<Edit...>", and add

$(ProjectDir)Includes
$(ProjectDir)Includes/SDL
$(ProjectDir)Includes/lua5.1
$(ProjectDir)data
$(ProjectDir)src
$(ProjectDir)generated

(type that exactly -- also note that there is no backslash between "$(ProjectDir)" and "Includes", and that they are all on separate lines)

• Open the drop down menu for Library Directories, click "<Edit...>", and add

$(ProjectDir)Libraries

(note that there is no backslash between "$(ProjectDir)" and "Libraries")

• Go to Configuration Properties > C/C++.

• Under "General", open the drop-down menu for "Warning Level" and choose the option to turn off all warnings. (This will make it easier if you get any errors during compiling, as you won't have to dig through a bunch of unimportant warnings to get to the errors.)

• Under "Code Generation", open up the drop-down menu for "Floating Point Model" and set it to Fast. (this'll get you a noticeable speed improvement). Also, right above it, change "Enable Enhanced Instruction Set" to SSE2.

• Go to Configuration Properties > Linker > Input.

• Open the drop down menu for "Additional Dependencies," click "<Edit...>", and enter the following text

shell32.lib
ws2_32.lib
wsock32.lib
SDL.lib
SDLmain.lib
libbz2.lib
pthreadVC2.lib
lua5.1.lib
libfftw3f-3.lib
regex.lib
zlib.lib

• Press OK until you close the project properties.

• Hit the F7 key on your keyboard, or click Build > Build Solution. You can also click the green "Start Debugging" arrow.
• If something goes wrong (i.e. you get an error of some sort), ask on The Powder Toy forums

• The resulting executable and its required DLLs can be found in the "Build" folder in your source code directory.