Onboarding dlang noob test

[p0nce]

Paid someone to onboard on Dlang + Windows + Dplug and see what happens. Well it was interesting to say the least.

List of problems encountered:

• in current dplug.org, Getting Started is at the end, it should be on top => fixed in new website
• did find How to start wiki page
• did find our tutorial here https://p0nce.github.io/d-idioms/#Installing-Dlang-on-Windows
  • HOWEVER the Table Of Contents led him to chase downloads instead of following the tutorial instructions, remove that
  • AND following the instructions is long especially in the VS selection screen but works
• suggest if DMD isn't mandatory, remove its mention in the Wiki
• in the Wiki, single-line command-line starting with $ are annoying when you copy paste. Only useful for multilines.
• EVERY LDC executable are blocked by antivirus, report the false positives => Can't download LDC 1.39 from Chrome or Brave ldc-developers/ldc#4794 => reported 4 false detections
• Founds its way to the VisualD installer, which installs a C++ runtime, but expected to find LDC somewhere and don't know where it is. Installed LDC from GitHub anyway, which worked. Probably shouldn't mention VisualD at all? I have no idea where VisualD installs LDC either. => is it recommended by Stephane? => yes => no particular issue
• say he doesn't know where VisualD installer puts LDC. I don't know either.
• and then it didn't build since missing some functions. This issue solved by download VS Community 2022 installer and running it, but needed outside intervention to know.=> adapted FAQ
• But rated the onboarding as "I've seen worse by far"

End Result
In the end, was able to build a dlang executable but not a plugin due to missing libcmt.lib
Not sure if static C++ runtime installed at all.

So right now it's almost impossible to try Dplug on Windows if you're not already deep in D.

[p0nce]

Why we static link on Windows? it's because it seems Phobos and LDC can become dynlinked themselves.
Else Luna says there isn't much reasons since Windows changes in 2017 to static link vcruntime

[p0nce]

• Clean-up example distort and clip it so that source and module-xxx are one level below
  * "the examples don't have the same structure"
• is confused by the presence of: .dsp files, .lib files, .pdb files, .exp file => mmm, copied by DUB => Windows LINK.EXE => uselessly show .lib and .exp? dlang/dub#2979

[hadrien-thomas-dev]

Here is the summary of this afternoon session

• Show at the end of the build example session what is and where to find the output of the build ak .vst in ./builds
• Add a section: create your first plugin and suggest to copy paste template and go to gui.d
• I got a misleading error saying info: Missing "licensePath" in plugin.json (eg: "license.txt") it was in fact a problem with pluginUniqueID and vendorUniqueID format => bundled the license with each example instead of pointing in parent directory
• Maybe edit the template plugin to show a text like Greetings in your plugin, this is its content with a specific background (not blank) to help identify which is which in terms of UI
• The distort plugin and template plugin do not share the same folder and files structure. It would be a plus to match them because we copy template and then get some snippets from the other real exemple plugins like distort
• I did not succeed in making all template occurrences disappear: I still have template.lib, template.pdb et template.exp. No explanation on why. I put the verbose build at the end of the comment if it helps => Windows LINK.EXE => uselessly show .lib and .exp? dlang/dub#2979 => explain why they are there, because a few of them believe are just confusion => people seem not to care in the Dplug discord => used targetPath to avoid pollution
• I succeeded in generating my first plugin but I struggled on the next step like adding some text or buttons. Is there an API?

...stripped...
Copying target from C:\Users\thoma\AppData\Local\dub\cache\template\~master\build\VST3-debug-r3220VnsYVu-RaJyOI0dig\template.dll to C:\Users\thoma\projects\Dplug\examples\dhibou
Copying target from C:\Users\thoma\AppData\Local\dub\cache\template\~master\build\VST3-debug-r3220VnsYVu-RaJyOI0dig\template.pdb to C:\Users\thoma\projects\Dplug\examples\dhibou
Copying target from C:\Users\thoma\AppData\Local\dub\cache\template\~master\build\VST3-debug-r3220VnsYVu-RaJyOI0dig\template.lib to C:\Users\thoma\projects\Dplug\examples\dhibou
Copying target from C:\Users\thoma\AppData\Local\dub\cache\template\~master\build\VST3-debug-r3220VnsYVu-RaJyOI0dig\template.exp to C:\Users\thoma\projects\Dplug\examples\dhibou

[p0nce]

Everything solved so far.