notepad-plus-plus/BUILD.md

How to build Notepad++

There are two components that need to be built separately:

• notepad++.exe: (depends on SciLexer.dll)
• SciLexer.dll : (with nmake)

You can build Notepad++ with or without Boost - The release build of Notepad++ is built with Boost.

Since Notepad++ version 6.0, the build of SciLexer.dll that is distributed uses features from Boost's Boost.Regex library.

You can build SciLexer.dll without Boost, ie. with its default POSIX regular expression support instead of boost's PCRE one. This is useful if you would like to debug Notepad++, but don't have boost.

Build notepad++.exe:

1. Open PowerEditor\visual.net\notepadPlus.vcxproj
2. Build Notepad++ like a normal Visual Studio project.

As mentioned above, you'll need SciLexer.dll to run Notepad++. Please check the following sections for building SciLexer.dll. Once SciLexer.dllis generated, copy it from scintilla\bin\ to the same directory as notepad++.exe.

Build SciLexer.dll with boost:

Here are the instructions to build SciLexer.dll (for both 32-bit & 64-bit) for Notepad++:

1. Download the Boost source code.
2. Unzip boost. In my case, It's unzipped in C:\sources\boost_1_70_0
3. Build regex of boost. With the version 1.70, launch bootstrap.bat under the boost root, b2.exe will be generated beside of bootstrap.bat. For building boost PCRE lib, go into regex build directory by typing cd C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\libs\regex\build then launch C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\b2.exe toolset=msvc link=static threading=multi runtime-link=static address-model=64 release stage. Note that address-model=64 is optional if you want to build lib in 64 bits. For 32 bits build, just remove address-model=64 from the command line.
4. Copy generated static link library (*.lib) from C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\bin.v2\libs\regex\build\msvc-14.1\release\address-model-64\link-static\runtime-link-static\threading-multi\libboost_regex-vc141-mt-s-x64-1_70.lib to C:\tmp\boostregexLib\x64\
5. Go in scintilla\win32\ then run nmake BOOSTPATH=your_boost_root_path BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=your_built_lib_path -f scintilla.mak. For example nmake BOOSTPATH=C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\ BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=C:\tmp\boostregexLib\x64\ -f scintilla.mak

Build SciLexer.dll without boost:

This will work with notepad++.exe, however some functionality in Notepad++ will be broken.

To build SciLexer.dll without PCRE support (for both 32-bit & 64-bit):

1. For 32-bit, open a command prompt for building (a.k.a. the Developer Command Prompt for VS2017)

   • From the IDE, you can do this by right clicking on a file in Solution Explorer, and clicking "Open Command Prompt". This will open up a command prompt with all the proper environment variables.
   • From the Windows Start screen/menu, type Developer Command Prompt for VS2017, and click/select the result.
   • From an already open command prompt, run vcvarsall.bat (e.g. "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\vcvarsall.bat").

   For 64-bit, open VS2017 x64 Native tool command prompt.

2. Change directory (cd or pushd) to scintilla\win32\

3. Build SciLexer.dll with one of the following commands:

   • nmake -f scintilla.mak (normal build)
   • nmake DEBUG=1 -f scintilla.mak (debugging build)

Note: If building the 32-bit and 64-bit versions in the same folder structure, after building one, it may be necessary to do a nmake -f scintilla.mak clean before building the other.

Build 64 bits binaries with GCC:

If you have installed MinGW-w64, then you can compile Notepad++ & SciLexer.dll 64 bits binaries with GCC.

• Compile Notepad++ binary

1. Launch cmd.
2. Change dir into notepad-plus-plus\PowerEditor\gcc.
3. Type mingw32-make.exe -j%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS%
4. NotepadPP.exe is generated in notepad-plus-plus\PowerEditor\bin\.

• Compile SciLexer.dll

1. Launch cmd.
2. Change dir into notepad-plus-plus\scintilla\win32.
3. Type mingw32-make.exe -j%NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS%
4. SciLexer.dll is generated in notepad-plus-plus\scintilla\bin\.

You can download MinGW-w64 from https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/. On Notepad++ Github page (this project), the build system use MinGW 8.1.

Note 1: if you use MinGW from the package (7z), you need manually add the MinGW/bin folder path to system Path variable to make mingw32-make.exe invoke works (or you can use command :set PATH=%PATH%;C:\xxxx\mingw64\bin for adding it on each time you launch cmd).

Note 2: For 32bit build, https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/Toolchains%20targetting%20Win32/Personal%20Builds/mingw-builds/8.1.0/threads-posix/sjlj/i686-8.1.0-release-posix-sjlj-rt_v6-rev0.7z could be used. The rest of the instructions are still valid.