Allegro installation for MSVS C++ 2008 express (help)

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10 comments, last by nghiale 14 years, 1 month ago
OK. I've been "googling" for hours now and can't seem to find the help I'm looking for, so I made an account here in hopes that someone can explain, in explicit detail, how to implement the allegro graphics library into Visual C++ 2008 express. This is probably such a trivial problem that just about anyone on this forum can answer, but for some reason or another it's been a HUGE problem for me. Thanks in advance to anyone that can help.
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I have the actual binaries that work but im trying to find a way 2 send em 2 u.
can u give me your email?
I got them here:
http://www.allegro.cc/forums/thread/594893
but the link the guy posted is not valid.

EDIT: or u can build them yourself. http://alleg.sourceforge.net/wip.html
Well I just started working with Allegro again using VS 2008 myself and I posted the instructions I used to get it working here
It looks like the Allegro wiki site is down right now though.

p.s. If you are using 2008 express there is no need to download the platform SDK so you can skip that step since it's now included with c++ 2008 express unlike 2005 version.


[Edited by - daviangel on April 22, 2008 2:01:14 AM]
[size="2"]Don't talk about writing games, don't write design docs, don't spend your time on web boards. Sit in your house write 20 games when you complete them you will either want to do it the rest of your life or not * Andre Lamothe
Quote:Original post by daviangel
Well I just started working with Allegro again using VS 2008 myself and I posted the instructions I used to get it working here
It looks like the Allegro wiki site is down right now though.

p.s. If you are using 2008 express there is no need to download the platform SDK so you can skip that step since it's now included with c++ 2008 express unlike 2005 version.


OK. I've been looking through the links and the instructions seem to be very well written. I'm going to try getting the library into VS again after school; thank you for the help.

* Edit: ...yeah, for some reason (after going through all those steps) I still can't access the library. It's probably my fault; this is my first attempt at installing any kind of library and apparently I'm not going to be able to do it. I'll try a few more times until I move on to something else. Starting to run out of time though...

[Edited by - DarkDivinity on April 24, 2008 2:59:22 PM]
Hey I didn't really understand what trouble people were having with Allegro and Visual C++ 08, since I got them working together just fine.

You can read the article where I link the library to download, source code, and screen shot for verification that it is indeed in using Visual C++ 08!

You can read the article as it is the first blog on my new blog

http://csfinch.wordpress.com/ - Should also be a link in my sig.

Hope the article helps, and I must thank you for popping my blog cherry, for I was debating on what should be the first article on the blog! ;)

Quote:Original post by aleisterbukowski
Hey I didn't really understand what trouble people were having with Allegro and Visual C++ 08, since I got them working together just fine.

You can read the article where I link the library to download, source code, and screen shot for verification that it is indeed in using Visual C++ 08!

You can read the article as it is the first blog on my new blog

http://csfinch.wordpress.com/ - Should also be a link in my sig.

Hope the article helps, and I must thank you for popping my blog cherry, for I was debating on what should be the first article on the blog! ;)

Good start but your pic at the bottom is so small I can't make out what it is even running?
I should get around to posting my own tutorial or updating the wiki entry since there are actually some tiny things you need to watch out for if you are running Vista x64 like I am. For example you will not find any of your VC binary stuff under Program Files it will all be under Program Files(x86) instead so maybe that is causing some people problems?
But for the most part anyone that's been using Visual Studio/progamming should be able to figure it with all the links already provided and especially with the pre-built binaries. Compiling the source yourself with VS 2008 is a bit harder. And I don't like how they have you pollute your Visual Studio folders by copying files to it. I instead just add the Allegro path in Visual Studio like I do for SDL and DirectX.
[size="2"]Don't talk about writing games, don't write design docs, don't spend your time on web boards. Sit in your house write 20 games when you complete them you will either want to do it the rest of your life or not * Andre Lamothe
Thanks! I think I too wills tart just adding paths in visual studio instead of polluting the folders with the libraries, it would also be easier to update! I shall edit my blog tomorrow!

Thanks! ;)
Quote:Original post by aleisterbukowski
Thanks! I think I too wills tart just adding paths in visual studio instead of polluting the folders with the libraries, it would also be easier to update! I shall edit my blog tomorrow!

Thanks! ;)

Exactly! I don't know why most of the documentation on the web has Visual Studio users manually copying all that stuff to their VS folders since it still works/compiles fine by creating an Allegro folder somewhere else and just pointing VS to it. That's what I'm doing right now since I'm using several different versions of Allegro at the moment.
If someone can tell me why everyone is telling people to copy that stuff into the Visual Studio or if there is a good reason for or against? I'd like to know.
[size="2"]Don't talk about writing games, don't write design docs, don't spend your time on web boards. Sit in your house write 20 games when you complete them you will either want to do it the rest of your life or not * Andre Lamothe
You know I honestly have no idea...

I saw one tutorial at lazy foo productions website, and as a beginning programmer until I started with DirectX and referencing and linking the SDK in Visual Studio's (since they're is an update to that SDK seems like every 3 months); I guess I just got into that bad habit of copying & pasting.

I do like the referencing and linking much more efficient, safer, and quicker to update. Now i just feel bad, for the blog I just wrote. Not helpful at all.

edit: Now that I think about it. There are a couple of gamedev books floating out there "Game Programming All in One" that is telling people to do so, and it says if it says do you want to overwrite the files in the include directory just click yes. blah blah blah.... There are "professional" books out there saying to do this, but I'm guessing maybe the referencing and linking feature in visual studio wasn't released until later after this method was well over used as just another mundane task for programmers maybe?

I'm not sure. Good question! but nevertheless there are professional books out there teaching this to beginners, and I must ask why?

edit again: the blog is updated!!! :) Go read > Go Comment > Go Now!
Quote:Original post by aleisterbukowski
You know I honestly have no idea...

I saw one tutorial at lazy foo productions website, and as a beginning programmer until I started with DirectX and referencing and linking the SDK in Visual Studio's (since they're is an update to that SDK seems like every 3 months); I guess I just got into that bad habit of copying & pasting.

I do like the referencing and linking much more efficient, safer, and quicker to update. Now i just feel bad, for the blog I just wrote. Not helpful at all.

edit: Now that I think about it. There are a couple of gamedev books floating out there "Game Programming All in One" that is telling people to do so, and it says if it says do you want to overwrite the files in the include directory just click yes. blah blah blah.... There are "professional" books out there saying to do this, but I'm guessing maybe the referencing and linking feature in visual studio wasn't released until later after this method was well over used as just another mundane task for programmers maybe?

I'm not sure. Good question! but nevertheless there are professional books out there teaching this to beginners, and I must ask why?

edit again: the blog is updated!!! :) Go read > Go Comment > Go Now!

I know why because the msvc readme file that comes with allegro says to do so!
"If everything builds successfully, you'll need to copy some files to finish
the installation:

Copy the contents of C:\allegro\include to "Visual Studio\VC\include"
Copy the .lib files from C:\allegro\lib\msvc to "Visual Studio\VC\lib"
Copy the .dll files from C:\allegro\lib\msvc to C:\Windows\System32
"
Then later in the same document they say the correct way to do it IMO!
"The DirectX SDK can be obtained directly from Microsoft. An old version
of the headers is included with MSVC 6, but Allegro requires more recent
files. You should either copy the current headers into your MSVC include
and lib directories, or alter your INCLUDE and LIB environment variables
to put the DirectX SDK files in front of the standard MSVC locations.
"
So the documentation could use some work.
[size="2"]Don't talk about writing games, don't write design docs, don't spend your time on web boards. Sit in your house write 20 games when you complete them you will either want to do it the rest of your life or not * Andre Lamothe

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