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#c++ #cmake #openframeworks #programming

Using openFrameworks v0.9 with CMake on Windows

EDIT: You can get the update ofProjectGenerator from here.

A while ago I wrote a project generator for using QMake with openFrameworks v0.8.4. You can find it here. When ofv0.9 came out with support for VS2015 and x64, I didn’t want to use the previous version. But I also didn’t want to use Visual Studio, I have a weird peeve about it. Since QMake doesn’t have support for VS215, yet, I decided to port it to CMake. I didn’t update the ofProjectGenerator to use both OF versions, QMake and CMake, but I’ll do it soon. Here I’ll lay out the steps to get it to work manually.

This is based on of_v0.9.0_vs_release. So, it’s using the libraries in the release. Note that If you compile openFrameworks for both release and debug, you can copy those files to ${OF_PATH}/libs/openFrameworksCompiled/lib/cs/${Win32/x64}} and the Cmake scripts will use those libraries and skip compiling openFrameworks from source. And that will decrease your compilation time. Be sure to name the release library as openFrameworksLib_release.lib and the debug library as openFrameworksLib_debug.lib.

You can get the template files from my GitHub account, here. Download the files project_CMakeLists.txt, of_CMakeLists.txt and findOpenFrameworks-v0.9.cmake.

  • project_CMakeLists.txt is the cmake file for your project.
  • of_CMakeLists.txt is the file for openFrameworks v0.9
  • findOpenFrameworks-v0.9.cmake is the file that will set up the environment for you.

First copy of_CMakeLists.txt and findOpenFrameworks-v0.9.cmake to the openFrameworks root path on your computer. That’s ``D:/Development/Tools/of_v0.9.0_vs_release/ on my computer. Then rename of_CMakeLists.txt to CMakeLists.txt. Next up, create a folder for your project. Let's name it of_cmake. Copy the project_CMakeLists.txt to that folder as CMakeLists.txt. Now, open that file and you'll see a line like this: set(OF_PATH “D:/Development/Tools/of_v0.9.0_vs_release/”)`. Change that directory to point to the openFrameworks v0.9 path on your computer. And you are done!

If you want to use addons, then you’ll see a include(ofAddons.cmake) line. Open ofAddons.cmake, or if you don’t have it create the file, and add the desired addons like below. ${ADDONS_PATH} is automatically set based on your ${OF_PATH}, so you don’t need to worry about that.

# Add addons
list(APPEND ADDONS_SRC
    ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatable.cpp
    ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatableFloat.cpp
    ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatableOfColor.cpp
    ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatableOfPoint.cpp
    )
list(APPEND ADDONS_HEADERS
        ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatable.h
        ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatableOfColor.h
        ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatableFloat.h
        ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src/ofxAnimatableOfPoint.h
    )

list(APPEND ADDONS_INCLUDE_PATH
    ${ADDONS_PATH}/ofxAnimatable/src
    )

This seems a lot of work to start a project but until I update the generator, it’s as easy as it gets.