Set up my Windows (with MSYS2)

In this guide, we will walk through the steps to install the necessary Applications and Tools using MSYS2 (Minimal SYStem) on Windows. This will enable you to code in C# and C++ with SplashKit.

Already have SplashKit installed?

If you have previously installed SplashKit:

• Update SplashKit using your MSYS2/MINGW64 terminal with the command: skm update
• Then you can skip to Install SplashKit Globally.

Now, let’s get started!

To get SplashKit and other coding tools installed on Windows, using MSYS2, follow the steps outlined below:

1. Install MSYS2

Download the installer from the official MSYS2 website: www.msys2.org

MSYS2 Installation Video:

To install MSYS2, double-click the downloaded executable file, and follow the on-screen instructions.

It is strongly recommended that you use the default install path, but you can customise the other installation options as needed.

Which Terminal?

MSYS2 comes with a variety of terminal environments. The MINGW64 terminal environment is recommended for 64-bit computers (MINGW32 for 32-bit) as it has been found to support the C# and C++ terminal commands you will use.

Therefore, you should use the MINGW64 (MSYS2 MINGW64) terminal, which you can find by searching “mingw64” in the Windows Start menu and selecting the MSYS2 MINGW64 App.

Pin it!

To make it easier to open each time, you can pin your terminal to the Taskbar.

• Open MINGW64 terminal.
• Right-click on the MSYS2 App icon in the taskbar (shown in the orange box in the image below).
• Select “Pin to taskbar” (shown in the pink box):

Image not subject to The Programmer’s Field Guide CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

Automated Setup

This script will install the following applications and tools:

• Visual Studio Code
  • C/C++ Extensions
  • C# Extensions
• .NET SDK
• SplashKit
  • SplashKit Global
• git
• clang
• gcc
• gdb

Open the MSYS2/MINGW64 Terminal using “Run as Administrator” and run the following command:

curl -s "https://programmers.guide/resources/MSYS2_InstallScript.sh" | bash /dev/stdin

Note

This script may take a while to run (approx. 5-10 mins).

Once the automated script has finished running, close and reopen the Terminal.

Run the command skm to check SplashKit is installed correctly.

Lastly, try opening a “New Terminal” in VS Code (Terminal > New Terminal).

Add MINGW64 Terminal to Visual Studio Code

If you do not see the MSYS2/MINGW64 terminal, go to the Setup VS Code Terminal section to add your MSYS2/MINGW64 Terminal into VS Code.

Then, once you’re finished, you can go to the Using MSYS2 section for more information about accessing files in your C drive with the MSYS2/MINGW64 terminal.

Manual Steps

2. Install Command Line Tools

To install SplashKit, you will firstly need to install some command line tools using the pacman package manager.

Command Line Tools Installation Video:

The command used in the video above has been altered slightly, but the process is the same.

Copy and paste the following command into your MINGW64 terminal window to install the git, clang, gcc and gdb pacman packages:

pacman -S git mingw-w64-x86_64-clang mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-gdb --noconfirm --disable-download-timeout

Paste commands into MINGW64 Terminal

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use Ctrl + V to paste.

Instead, right-click anywhere in the terminal window and then select Paste.

3. Install SplashKit

SplashKit is a beginner’s all-purpose software toolkit that will allow you to create fun and exciting programs more easily, especially for Graphical User Interface (GUI) programs.

SplashKit Installation Video:

Copy and paste the following command into your MINGW64 terminal to download and run the SplashKit installer:

bash <(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/splashkit/skm/master/install-scripts/skm-install.sh)

Troubleshooting tip:

If you have issues installing the SplashKit SDK, go to the No response when running SplashKit installation command section in the Installation Troubleshooting page for an alternative installation process.

Curious to know more?

The SplashKit SDK is installed using the skm-install.sh shell script which is stored in the skm GitHub repository (in the install-scripts folder).

It will also add the required paths to your PATH environment variable.

Install SplashKit Globally

Finally, you will need to install the SplashKit Global Libraries. This will install the SplashKit libraries and library include files into the system’s default global locations so that the compiler can find these files when building (compiling) programs created with SplashKit.

To install SplashKit globally, open the MINGW64 terminal and run the following command in the terminal window:

skm global install

You may need to open the MINGW64 Terminal with “Run as administrator” if you have issues.

What does this command do specifically?

The command above will add the SplashKit libraries into the /mingw64/lib folder, and the required SplashKit library include files into the /mingw64/include folder.

4. Install Visual Studio Code

Visual Studio Code, also commonly known as VS Code or just Code, is a powerful and versatile code editor that enables efficient coding, debugging, and collaboration for your SplashKit projects!

VS Code Installation Video:

VS Code has it all!

Once you have your code project set up, Visual Studio Code will be the main program you will use to write, build, run and debug your code.

Download and run the installer from: code.visualstudio.com/Download.

Open Code from Terminal

You can open Visual Studio Code from the MINGW64 terminal by typing code and pressing enter. code . will open the current folder in Visual Studio Code.

You will need to close and reopen any currently open terminal windows after installing VS Code for the above commands to work.

Setup VS Code Terminal

Visual Studio Code has a built-in Terminal that you can use instead of needing to switch back and forth between VS Code and your MINGW64 terminal window. You will need to update some settings to get this working with your MINGW64 terminal.

Open Visual Studio Code, then press Ctrl + Shift + P to open the Command Palette.

Start typing “Open user…” and then select Open User Settings (JSON) (shown in the orange box in the image below):

Image not subject to The Programmer’s Field Guide CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

This will open the settings.json file that you can now edit.

Create a new line just before the last closing curly brace } at the end of the file, and then copy and paste the text below into that line:

    "terminal.integrated.profiles.windows": {
        "PowerShell": {
            "source": "PowerShell",
            "icon": "terminal-powershell"
        },
        "Command Prompt": {
            "path": [
                "${env:windir}\\Sysnative\\cmd.exe",
                "${env:windir}\\System32\\cmd.exe"
            ],
            "args": [],
            "icon": "terminal-cmd"
        },
        "MSYS2": {
            "path": "C:\\msys64\\usr\\bin\\bash.exe",
            "args": [
                "--login",
                "-i"
            ],
            "env": {
                "MSYSTEM": "MINGW64",
                "CHERE_INVOKING": "1"
            }
        }
    },
    "terminal.integrated.defaultProfile.windows": "MSYS2",
    "terminal.integrated.env.windows": {
        "MSYSTEM": "MINGW64",
        "CHERE_INVOKING": "1"
    },

Troubleshooting Notes:

• If you already have some settings included in this file, you will need to add a comma , after the closing curly brace } on the line above your new line.
• If you already see code that looks similar to the code above, you may need to copy only small parts to match the code above.
• The last line of the code above will set your default profile, so that it will automatically use the MSYS2 (MINGW64) terminal. You can also read this article to see other ways to set the default terminal.

Save the file for these changes to take effect.

Now you can open a new Terminal in VS Code with: Terminal > New Terminal (as shown below):

Image not subject to The Programmer’s Field Guide CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License

Recommended Extensions

The final step to complete the setup of VS Code is to install a few Extensions in VS Code:

Set up my VS Code Extensions

Go to the page linked above, follow the steps to install both the C# and C/C++ recommended extensions, and then come back here and continue to the next step. You can use the “Back button” in your browser to return to this page.

5. Install Language Specific Tools

Some coding languages require specific tools/frameworks to be installed to be able to build and run your code files.
As you will be coding in C# and C++ in this book, let’s look at the tools needed for these languages:

C# Tools

For coding in C#, you will need to install the .NET SDK which will allow you to use the dotnet terminal command to create, build, and run your C# project code.

.NET Installation Video:

Download the latest version of the .NET SDK for Windows from the official .NET website: dotnet.microsoft.com/download

Run the downloaded installer and follow on-screen instructions.

C/C++ Tools

For coding in C++, you will need to have a C++ compiler installed to build your C++ code into a file you can use to run your program. Commonly used C++ compilers are g++ and clang++, which can be installed with GCC (GNU Compiler Collection). You will also need to install GDB (GNU Debugger), which you can use when debugging C++ programs.

Note

If you installed the Command Line Tools successfully in Step 2, then you will already have the necessary compilers installed and ready for coding in C++!

Your Windows machine is now set up with MSYS2, Visual Studio Code, and SplashKit, ready for C# and C++ development. Happy coding!

Using MSYS2

MSYS installs a minimal Linux environment on top of Windows. This will give you easy access to all of your Windows files and folder. The one challenge is that MSYS2 has its own home folder that does not map to your Windows home folder.

If you want to access your Windows home folder you will need to use the cd command to move into that folder. Each of your system drives (C: for example) is mapped to a folder with the drive name in the root of the file system. So C: is /c/ in MSYS. To access my Windows Documents folder, I can use the path /c/Users/andrew/Documents. You will need to change andrew to be your username, so the path will be in the format /c/Users/<username>/Documents. The following commands move to my Documents folder.

# Move to my C drive
cd /c/

# Move to my Documents folder
cd /c/Users/andrew/Documents

Update HOME path in MSYS2/MINGW64 terminal

Note

If you used the automated installation script above, you should already have an updated ‘home’ folder. You can check this by using the pwd command when you first open the terminal window. If you get a result such as /c/Users/<your username>, then your home folder has been updated. If you see /home/<your username>, then the home folder has not been updated. Follow the instructions below to update.

To simplify changing the directory in your MSYS2/MINGW64 terminal, you can update the default home folder (HOME path) to be your Windows home using the following command:

echo 'HOME="/c/Users/$(whoami)"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Once the home folder has been changed to your Windows folder, you will be able to use the following command to move to your Documents folder

# Move to Documents folder
cd ~/Documents

File Explorer

Using these commands you should be able to save your projects in a Code folder inside your Windows Documents folder for easy access.

You can also use the explorer.exe program to open a folder in the File Explorer.

# Move into my Documents folder
cd ~/Documents

# Open the current directory in File Explorer
explorer .

Shortcut/Alternative way to use “cd” command:

Here is a video showing how you can click and drag folders into your MSYS2/MINGW64 terminal to make using the cd command quicker/easier.

Note that you need to type cd then add a space before you drag the folder.