Setup Development Environment

2. Setup Development Environment#

These are some generic tips that might be handy when setting up your own development environment.

2.1. Visual Studio 2022#

  • Open a terminal/powershell window

  • Run git clone https://github.com/ComputationalBiomechanicsLab/opensim-creator to get a complete copy of OpenSim Creator’s sourcecode

  • cd opensim-creator

  • Run python scripts/build_windows.py --skip-osc (described above) to get a complete build of OSC’s dependencies.

  • In Visual Studio 2020, open opensim-creator as a folder project

  • Later versions of Visual Studio (i.e. 2017+) should have in-built CMake support that automatically detects that the folder is a CMake project

  • Right-click the CMakeLists.txt file to edit settings or build the project

    • You may need to set your configure command arguments to point to the dependencies install (e.g. -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=$(projectDir)/osc-dependencies-install)

  • Use the Switch between solutions and available views button in the Solution Explorer hierarchy tab to switch to the CMake Targets View

  • Right-click the osc CMake target and Set As Startup Project, so that pressing F5 will then build+run osc.exe

  • (optional): switch the solution explorer view to a Folder View after doing this: the CMake view is crap for developing osc

  • You should now be able to build+run osc from Visual Studio

  • To run tests, open the Test Explorer tab, which should list all of the googletest tests in the project

2.1.1. Note: Debugging on Visual Studio#

googletest catches and reports Windows SEH exceptions. This is handy when (e.g.) running the test suites from a commandline, where you probably just want a report saying which ones have failed, but it is problematic if you specifically are running the test suite to debug a runtime error that the test is exercising.

To disable this behavior, you have to provide --gtest_catch_exceptions=0 to the test suite executable. In Visual Studio you can do this by:

  • Setting the executable as your startup (F5 et. al.) project

  • Then go to Debug > Debug and Launch Settings for TestOpenSimCreator.exe (for example)

  • And then add an args element to the configurations list

Example:

Listing 2.1 config.json#
{
  "version": "0.2.1",
  "defaults": {},
  "configurations": [
    {
      "type": "default",
      "project": "CMakeLists.txt",
      "projectTarget": "TestOpenSimCreator.exe (tests\\TestOpenSimCreator\\TestOpenSimCreator.exe)",
      "name": "TestOpenSimCreator.exe (tests\\TestOpenSimCreator\\TestOpenSimCreator.exe)",
      "args": [
    "--gtest_catch_exceptions=0"
      ]
    }
  ]
}

2.2. QtCreator#

  • Run the appropriate (OS-dependent) buildscript (described above)

  • Open QtCreator and then open the opensim-creator source directory as a folder

  • For selecting a “kit”, QtCreator usually detects that osc-build already exists (side-effect of running the buildscript). You may need to “import existing kit/build” and then select osc-build, though

  • Once QtCreator knows your source dir (opensim-creator/) and build/kit (opensim-creator/osc-build), it should be good to go