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How to build Notepad++

Pre-requisites:

  • Microsoft Visual Studio 2017 (C/C++ Compiler, v141 toolset)

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.

More about the build process: https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/13959/building-notepad-with-visual-studio-2015-2017

Build notepad++.exe:

  1. Open PowerEditor\visual.net\notepadPlus.vcxproj
  2. Select a solution configuration (debug or release) and a solution platform (x64 or x32)
  3. 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.dll is generated, copy it from scintilla\bin\ to the same directory as notepad++.exe.

Build SciLexer.dll:

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

For steps below, we need to set the compiler path and environment variables. A common way to do that is use Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio:

  • For 32-bit, open a command prompt for building:
    • 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 x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2017 from the Windows Start menu.
  • Read more: Set the Path and Environment Variables for Command-Line Builds

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.

Prepare boost

Skip this section if you want to build Scintilla without boost.

  1. Download the Boost source code.
  2. Unzip boost. Example location: C:\sources\boost_1_70_0
  3. Build Boost.Regex library.
    • Open the Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio
    • Go into the boost folder: cd C:\sources\boost_1_70_0
    • Prepare the Boost.Build system: bootstrap.bat vc141
    • b2.exe will be generated beside of bootstrap.bat
    • Go into regex build directory: cd C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\libs\regex\build
    • Build Boost.Regex with the same configuration as notepad++
      • Release: ..\..\..\b2.exe toolset=msvc link=static threading=multi runtime-link=static address-model=64 release stage
      • Debug: ..\..\..\b2.exe toolset=msvc link=static threading=multi runtime-link=static address-model=64 debug stage
    • The build output is a static library that looks like this libboost_regex-vc141-mt-s-x64-1_70.lib
    • For 32-bit build, remove address-model=64. The output would look like libboost_regex-vc141-mt-s-x32-1_70.lib
    • Note: You can copy the resulting static library to another location for convenience. This will be used later for BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH. Example: C:\tmp\boostregexLib\x64\

Build SciLexer.dll with boost:

  1. Open the Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio
  2. Go into the scintilla\win32\
  3. Build the same configuration as notepad++:
    • Release: nmake BOOSTPATH=<boost_root_path> BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=<built_realease_lib_path> -f scintilla.mak
    • Debug: nmake DEBUG=1 BOOSTPATH=<boost_root_path> BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=<built_debug_lib_path> -f scintilla.mak
    • Example: nmake BOOSTPATH=C:\sources\boost_1_70_0\ BOOSTREGEXLIBPATH=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\ -f scintilla.mak

Build SciLexer.dll without boost:

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

  1. Open the Developer Command Prompt for Visual Studio
  2. Go into the scintilla\win32\
  3. Build the same configuration as notepad++:
    • Release: nmake -f scintilla.mak
    • Debug: nmake DEBUG=1 -f scintilla.mak

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 32-bit 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.