Build Geany on Windows (using MSYS2)

Msys2 is a successor to msys which offers a unix-like environment on Windows combined with a pacman-based package manager. It's purpose is to simplify win32 compiliations, and it's doing great at that for GTK+ stack and related projects. In fact, it's so good it should become the default method of compiling Geany on Windows.

See http://sourceforge.net/projects/msys2/ and http://msys2.github.io/

This page aims at showing how to use MSYS2 to build Geany on Windows.

Download the installer from https://msys2.github.io/. Choose the 32bit or 64bit version depending on your Windows version, not whether you target a 32bit or 64bit compilation of Geany (this guide will always compile for 64bit).

Run the installer and follow the instructions. In the following we will assume that you installed the 64bit version to C:\mingw64.

After installation, open the MSYS2 environment via `Start Menu → All Programs → MSYS2 64bit → MSYS2 MinGW x64`

Next, execute:

  pacman --needed -Sy bash pacman pacman-mirrors msys2-runtime

Now exit and re-open the MSYS2 environment and perform a system update:

  pacman -Su

Restart msys2 once more, in case `pacman -Su` updated environment related packages.

Finally, install the dependencies needed by Geany:

  # toolchain
  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-binutils mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-gdb
  # make and Autotools
  pacman -S make mingw-w64-x86_64-libtool mingw-w64-x86_64-pkgconf autoconf automake gettext
  # gtk family
  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-gtk3
  # for building html docs
  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-python3 mingw-w64-x86_64-python-lxml
  # and if you fancy building from git
  pacman -S git
  # necessary for GTK bundle and installer steps
  pacman -S rsync
  # for GTK bundle creation and release creation
  pacman -S curl tar dos2unix zip unzip mingw-w64-x86_64-osslsigncode mingw-w64-x86_64-nsis

Make sure you have not installed both `gcc` and `mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc`, or you may get errors when building Geany.

At last, you might want to add `C:\msys64\mingw64\bin` to your `PATH` environment variable, in order to run Geany from the Windows Explorer.

In case you want also compile the combined Geany-Plugins collection, you need the following dependencies:

  # geany-plugins dependencies
  pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-check mingw-w64-x86_64-enchant mingw-w64-x86_64-lua51 mingw-w64-x86_64-gpgme mingw-w64-x86_64-libsoup mingw-w64-x86_64-libgit2 mingw-w64-x86_64-gtkspell3 mingw-w64-x86_64-ctpl-git

Note: Pacman will probably suggest to replace `mingw-w64-x86_64-lua51` by `mingw-w64-x86_64-luajit`. Deny this suggestion and keep installing `mingw-w64-x86_64-lua51`. Otherwise building the GeanyLua plugin might and creating a release installer will break.

You can either clone the source code from the GIT repository or download a release tarball and unpack it.

  cd
  curl -L -o geany-master.zip https://github.com/geany/geany/archive/master.zip
  unzip geany-master.zip
  cd geany-master
  # autogen.sh is not needed for release tarballs!
  NOCONFIGURE=1 ./autogen.sh
  # configure and make take a while, don't panic
  ./configure --prefix=/c/geany
  make -j2
  make install

After that, you can run Geany either through MSYS2 shell (`/c/geany/bin/geany`) or use the Windows Explorer to locate the executable and run it.

The first run should look like this, on GTK+ 3.18.6

You can either clone the source code from the GIT repository or download a release tarball and unpack it.

  cd
  curl -L -o geany-plugins-master.zip https://github.com/geany/geany-plugins/archive/master.zip
  unzip geany-plugins-master.zip
  cd geany-plugins-master
  # autogen.sh is not needed for release tarballs!
  NOCONFIGURE=1 ./autogen.sh
  # configure and make take a while, don't panic
  ./configure --prefix=/c/geany --with-geany-libdir=/c/geany/lib
  make -j2
  make install

In order to run Geany and/or create an installer for distribution, you need a GTK runtime environment. There is simple script which downloads all necessary packages and unpack them in an automated way.

After you have run the scripts as described below, you should copy the resulting files and directories all into your Geany installation directory if you want to use it directly for your own Geany installation. In case you want to create an installer, leave the directories as they are and read on.

The script can be found in `scripts/gtk-bundle-from-msys2.sh` in the Geany source directory.

To run the script, simply create a new directory where the GTK runtime environment should be unpacked and change into this directory. Then call the script and wait a bit. It will download all necessary MSYS2 packages and extract them.

  cd
  mkdir -p ~/bundle/geany
  cd ~/bundle/geany
  bash ~/geany-master/scripts/gtk-bundle-from-msys2.sh -3

There are a few command line options for this script. Run it with “-h” for details. The most important option is “-3” and “-4” which defines the GTK version to be used.

For Geany-Plugins, the process is quite similar. The script for Geany-Plugins is available `build/gtk-bundle-from-msys2.sh` in the Geany-Plugins source directory.

  cd
  mkdir -p ~/bundle/geany-plugins
  cd ~/bundle/geany-plugins
  bash ~/geany-plugins-master/build/gtk-bundle-from-msys2.sh -3

When creating releases, you always should make sure your GIT working tree is clean and maybe temporarily rename “.git” to make “./configure” think that you don't want to build a debug release. Alernatively, download a release source tarball, unpack it and use it to compile Geany resp. Geany-Plugins.

Build instructions to build Geany in order to create a Windows installer (within MSYS2 shell):

  DESTINATON=/release
  VERSION="1.39"
  cd ~/geany-master
  make distclean
  ./autogen.sh
  mkdir _build
  cd _build
  ../configure --prefix=${DESTINATON}/geany_install --disable-silent-rules
  make -j 2
  make install
  make DESTDIR=${DESTINATON}/geany-orig install

You can use any other location as installation target by adjusting `DESTINATON`. Then we compile Geany and install it normally and additionally using DESTDIR to another location. The normal installation is used for Geany-Plugins so they can easily find the Geany installation while the DESTDIR installation is used to move the installed files into the source directory back for the installer creation.

This process can probably be optimized and shortened but for now it works this way.

The following actually creates the installer.

For the following steps, a little Python is necessary to automate the further installer creation. The script can be downloaded here: geany-release.py.txt Open the script in your editor of choice and change paths at the beginning of the script as needed.

The script will also use `osslsigncode` to add digital signatures to the created binaries and installers. Either adjust the paths to the certifcate at the beginning of the script or leave them empty to skip digital signing.

Finally, run the script:

  cd /release/geany
  python3 ~/geany-release.py

This will strip and sign all binaries (geany.exe and various .dll files) and also convert documentation text files to CRLF format. At the end, you should get two installer executables in `/release`.

Build instructions to build Geany-Plugins in order to create a Windows installer (within MSYS2 shell):

  DESTINATON=/release
  VERSION="1.29"
  cd ~/geany-plugins-master
  make distclean
  ./autogen.sh
  mkdir _build
  cd _build
  ../configure --prefix=${DESTINATON}/geany_install --with-geany-libdir=${DESTINATON}/geany_install/lib --disable-silent-rules
  make -j 2
  make DESTDIR=${DESTINATON}/geany-plugins-orig install

For the following steps, a little Python is necessary to automate the further installer creation. The script can be downloaded here: geany-plugins-release.py.txt Open the script in your editor of choice and change paths at the beginning of the script as needed.

The script will also use `osslsigncode` to add digital signatures to the created binaries and installers. Either adjust the paths to the certifcate at the beginning of the script or leave them empty to skip digital signing.

Finally, run the script:

  cd /release/geany-plugins
  python3 ~/geany-plugins-release.py

This will strip and sign all binaries (various .dll files) and also convert documentation text files to CRLF format. At the end, you should get an installer executable in `/release`.