🛠️ Strawberry - Build with Visual Studio 2022

This guide uses Visual Studio 2022 to build Strawberry Music Player as well as required dependencies.

These instructions are provided as-is, they are primarily intended for developers working on Strawberry on Windows.

We do not offer support to users for building Strawberry on Windows.

Build tools (Git, CMake, Meson, Perl, Python, etc) versions are not regulary updated, so make sure you bump the versions in versions.bat before you run install.bat.

Requirements

• Git for Windows
• Visual Studio 2022
• Qt Visual Studio Tools
• CMake
• Meson
• NASM
• Strawberry Perl
• Python
• 7-Zip
• Win Flex/Bison
• Rust compiler MSVC
• NSIS
• NSIS LockedList Plugin
• NSIS Inetc Plugin
• NSIS Registry Plugin

Windows setup

Manual installation on Windows

Download and install manually:

• Git
  • Default settings can be used
• Visual Studio 2022 Community
  • Select Desktop development with C++

Clone repositories and download tools/dependencies

Open a Command Prompt and type:

mkdir C:\data\projects\strawberry
cd C:\data\projects\strawberry
git clone https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry.git
git clone https://github.com/strawberrymusicplayer/strawberry-msvc.git
cd strawberry-msvc
.\download.bat

Installation

Install manually from C:\data\projects\strawberry\msvc_\downloads:

• Required:
  • Install 7z<VERSION>-x64.exe
  • Install cmake-<VERSION>-windows-x86_64.msi
  • Install python-<VERSION>-amd64.exe
    • In first dialog:
      • Check: Add python.exe to PATH
      • Click Install Now (to use defaults)
    • In dialog Setup was successful:
      • Click: Disable path length limit
  • Install strawberry-perl-<VERSION>-64bit.msi
  • Extract win_flex_bison-<VERSION>.zip to C:\win_flex_bison
  • Install rustup-init.exe
    • Type in a Command Prompt: cargo install cargo-c
• Recommended: When building dependencies from source:
  • Install nasm-<VERSION>-installer-x64.exe
    • Run as Administrator and install into C:\Program Files\NASM.
• Recommended: When creating NSIS Windows installer:
  • Install NSIS: nsis-<NSIS_VERSION>-setup.exe
  • Extract NSIS LockedList.zip plugin:
    • Copy LockedList\Plugins\LockedList64.dll to C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\Plugins\LockedList64.dll
    • Copy LockedList\Plugins\x86-unicode\LockedList.dll to C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\Plugins\x86-unicode\LockedList.dll
  • Extract NSIS Inetc.zip plugin:
    • Copy Inetc\Plugins\x86-unicode\INetC.dll to C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\Plugins\x86-unicode\INetC.dll
  • Extract NSIS Registry.zip plugin:
    • Copy Registry\Desktop\Plugin\registry.dll to C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\Plugins\registry.dll
    • Copy Registry\Desktop\Plugin\registry.dll to C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\Plugins\x86-unicode\registry.dll

Configure PATH environment variable

Delete pkg-config files to prevent conflicts with Strawberry's own pkg-config:

• Delete C:\strawberry\perl\bin\pkg-config
• Delete C:\strawberry\perl\bin\pkg-config.bat

Windows Settings | System | About | Advanced system settings | Tab Advanced | Environment Variables:

• System variables | Path | Edit:
  • Delete: C:\Strawberry\c\bin (To prevent conflicts with other utilities)
  • Add: C:\Program Files\Git\bin (This is for sed and patch utilities)
  • Add: C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS
  • Make sure no MinGW-W64 (gcc, g++, etc) installation is in PATH, as this can cause those to be picked up as compiler instead of MSVC.

Meson installation

Building with Meson 1.6.0 installation results in build issues meson: error: unrecognized arguments:.

A temporary solution is to remove Meson via Windows Settings | Apps or remove programs. Then install Meson via Python PIP system wide. Start | x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022 and type:

pip install meson

Optional: Prebuilt binary dependencies

Prebuilt MSVC binaries can be optionally used to speed-up the build process. When this step is skipped, all libraries and dependencies are build from source.

To use prebuilds, download the following tar.xz files from Github strawberry-msvc-dependencies/releases:

• For debug, extract strawberry-msvc-x86_64-debug.tar.xz to C:\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_debug
• For release, extract strawberry-msvc-x86_64-release.tar.xz to C:\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_release

Build Strawberry from source including dependencies

• Set one debug or release in PATH environment variable:
  • For debug: C:\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_debug\bin, or:
  • For release: C:\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_release\bin
• Start | x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022:

cd C:\data\projects\strawberry\strawberry-msvc

For debug build:

.\build.bat

For release build:

.\build.bat release

Strawberry and Windows installer executables are generated in:

• For debug: C:\data\projects\strawberry\msvc_\build_debug\strawberry\build\
• For release: C:\data\projects\strawberry\msvc_\build_release\strawberry\build\

Setting up Strawberry for development in Visual Studio 2022

Optional Qt Visual Studio Tools can be installed via the toolbar Extensions | Manage Extensions and search for Qt Visual Studio Tools. Then click Install.

Debug build:

• Make sure the path C:\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_debug\bin is added to the PATH environment variable before starting Visual Studio 2022.
• Start | Visual Studio 2022
• Open a local folder C:\data\projects\strawberry\strawberry
• Toolbar Project | CMake Settings:
  • Select Configurations x64-Debug
  • Add CMake command arguments: -DARCH=x86_64 -DICU_ROOT=c:\\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_debug
• Select in the toolbar x64-Debug
• Toolbar: Build | Build All

Release build:

• Make sure the path C:\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_release\bin is added to the PATH environment variable before starting Visual Studio 2022.
• Start | Visual Studio 2022
• Open a local folder C:\data\projects\strawberry\strawberry
• Toolbar Project | CMake Settings:
  • Create new x64-Release
  • Select Configurations x64-Release
  • Add CMake command arguments: -DARCH=x86_64 -DICU_ROOT=c:\\strawberry_msvc_x86_64_release -DENABLE_WIN32_CONSOLE=OFF
  • Save the changes
  • In the toolbar select x64-Release
  • Project | Delete Cache and Reconfigure
• Toolbar: Build | Build All

Set breakpoint and press F5 to start debugging and use F10 to step into and F11 to step over.