Setup SDL project without Visual Studio or CMake (Windows)

SDL_Setup.txt

1. Download Compiler
2. Add Compiler to Path
3. Download SDL
4. Use SDL
$. Extras



1. Download compiler:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64/files/



2. Add bin folder path into enviroment variables

Path should be something like:
C:\Program Files\mingw-w64\x86_64-7.3.0-posix-seh-rt_v5-rev0\mingw64\bin

How to add environment variables:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44272416/how-to-add-a-folder-to-path-environment-variable-in-windows-10-with-screensho#44272417



3. Download SDL

https://www.libsdl.org/download-2.0.php
-> Development Libraries -> Windows -> SDL2-devel-2.020-mingw.tar.gz (MinGW 32/64-bit)

If you cannot extract .tar.gz use https://cloudconvert.com/gz-to-zip



4. Use SDL

Copy paste SDL2.dll from bin into project folder
Rename x86_64-w64-mingw32 to 64 (more convenient)

Add this to your compile command (manually or to build script):
-I"...\SDL\64\include" -L"...\SDL\64\lib" -lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2 -lws2_32 -Wl,-subsystem,windows

Example of full command (gcc for c, g++ for c++):
gcc.exe main.c  -I"C:\dev\SDL\64\include" -L"C:\dev\SDL\64\lib" -Wl,-subsystem,windows -lmingw32 -lSDL2main -lSDL2 -lws2_32 -o main.exe



$. Extras

a) SDL_image

https://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/
-> Development Libraries -> Windows -> SDL2_image_devel-2.0.5-mingw.tar.gz (MinGW 32/64 bit)

Copy SDL_image.h to SDL\64\include
Copy all dlls to project folder

b) SDL_ttf

https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL_ttf/releases
-> SDL2_ttf-devel-2.0.18-mingw-tar.gz

Copy SDL_ttf.h to SDL\64\include
Copy all dlls to project folder