It's still in beta.

Alright then. There are multiple conflicting instructions online. It's difficult for a new user to get a grip on how to do set up. Allegros biggest draw is how easy it is for new users, but changing the way it gets set up but not changing the instructions for setup sends mixed signals.

Maybe I've just caught things in a weird point, and I don't mind that. I just wanted to make the dev team aware.

I remember getting stuck on the instructions saying to mkdir build, then cd build, then something about parent directory (which I missed) for cmake command.

Hm, CMake should offer a bundlable binary.

Why are so many people so afraid of new things? Seriously, it isn't hard. It might be tedious if you plan to build all the dependencies yourself, but if all you want is allegro then you can SKIP them ALL. And if you do, the building is similar to how it was before. Just it uses CMake instead of hand rolled makefiles, and autoconf.

I don't know what any of those are! Or why that makes any kind of difference to me!

I don't want to have just allegro. I want to make games! I'm not interested in learning a build system and configuring makefiles with cmake folder build environment blabadie bloops subsystem platform altercations. That's what I see. Building things is a whole other language.

I'm not afraid of it. I just don't want to have to learn all the ins and outs of a system of which I only need to accomplish one thing.

It's just frustrating, Thomas. You talk about it and it seems easy to you because you understand the process. I don't. It's not something you can just pick up.

And I'm not a noob. I've been using allegro for more than 5 8 years now. Every time it comes time to build, it's a pain in the ass. There's always 50 steps and 50 switches and readmes and downloads and version conflicts. Not to mention when you can finally get it to work, there's that looming feeling that you didn't do it right and there's something wrong with the build that's going to come up later and bite you in the ass.

I'm sorry, I'm grumpy. I had some bad pizza.

Wait wait, what CMake version are you using? There's a very easy to use GUI version.

EDIT: You don't really need all addons. I could care less for flac support, so I don't build it.

On Windows, Allegro 4.2 came with MSVC project files that you open up and click build. There's nothing evil about that. It works every time with no fuss.

Allegro 5 is more difficult to build for MSVC, and I wouldn't recommend any average user to even bother doing it. (It's not like it's extremely hard, but it's an unnecessary evil.)

Under Linux, it's hardly a nuisance at all.

I never use the GUI version. It doesn't ever seem to work.

Open MSVC's Command Prompt.

• set LIB=%LIB%;c:\path\to\third\party\libs

• set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;c:\path\to\third\party\headers

• cd allegro

• mkdir build

• cd build

• cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 9 2008"

Laugh at all the missing dependencies.

Open MSVC project file. Build.

Exactly!! Apparently there's some way I shouldn't be setting up MSVC?! So, now "build allegro" is "figure out all the millions of possible things that could be wrong with your MSVC install with the looming feeling that it might have nothing to do with the problem." That's the definition of something that's a pain in the ass

Exactly!!

OK... Back to seriousness.

What are these lines:

set LIB=%LIB%;c:\path\to\third\party\libs
set INCLUDE=%INCLUDE%;c:\path\to\third\party\headers

Are these the libraries that Allegro requires to build? Do I need to get these from another place and build them? (And, this is allegro 5, right?)

Seriously, though. I've gone this far. I'm energized. I'm goin' all the way.

Need some theme music:

Yes. I put all the third party libraries (e.g., dumb.lib) in a single lib folder outside of my main MSVC lib folder. I think it's easier to keep organized that way.

Then if CMake knows to look there (via the LIB variable), they will be detected during the cmake process.

I was using MinGW and Code::Blocks before MSVC, but MSVC is so nice (the IDE, I mean). All the other environments I've used don't come close.

So, I'm assuming I could build the "vanilla" allegro without having to set the LIB and INCLUDE paths at all? I don't want to get ahead of myself so I'll try that first.

Aaaannnnd fail:

Setting environment for using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 x86 tools.

c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio 10.0\vc\bin>cd/

c:>cd users

c:\Users>cd mark

c:\Users\Mark>cd desktop

c:\Users\Mark\Desktop>cd allegro

c:\Users\Mark\Desktop\allegro>mkdir build

c:\Users\Mark\Desktop\allegro>cd build

c:\Users\Mark\Desktop\allegro\build>cmake .. -G "Visual Studio 9 2008"
-- Check for working C compiler using: Visual Studio 9 2008
-- Check for working C compiler using: Visual Studio 9 2008 -- broken
CMake Error at C:/Program Files (x86)/CMake 2.8/share/cmake-2.8/Modules/CMakeTes
tCCompiler.cmake:52 (MESSAGE):
  The C compiler "C:/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio
  10.0/VC/bin/cl.exe" is not able to compile a simple test program.

  It fails with the following output:

   Change Dir: C:/Users/Mark/Desktop/allegro/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeTmp



  Run Build Command:C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~1.0\Common7\IDE\VCExpress.exe
  CMAKE_TRY_COMPILE.sln /build Debug /project cmTryCompileExec



  Microsoft (R) Visual C++ 2010 Express Version 10.0.30319.1.

  Copyright (C) Microsoft Corp.  All rights reserved.



  Solution file
  'C:\Users\Mark\Desktop\allegro\build\CMakeFiles\CMakeTmp\CMAKE_TRY_COMPILE.sln
'
  is from a previous version of this application and must be converted in
  order to build in this version of the application.  To convert the
  solution, open the solution in this version of the application.



  CMake will not be able to correctly generate this project.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  CMakeLists.txt:30 (project)


-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!

c:\Users\Mark\Desktop\allegro\build>

I really don't know how to interpret any of those error messages.

Isn't that supposed to not work due to CMake making broken VS 10 projects?