Installing Infra Arcana from Github on Windows

Installing Infra Arcana from Github on Windows

First, download the Infra Arcana source code. While you can do this via git on
Windows, it's simplest (in terms of programs installed) to just download the
project's zip and unzip it.

https://github.com/martin-tornqvist/ia/

IMPORTANT: You will separately have to do the same with the rl-utils folder.
Just unzip it or copy-paste its contents into the same-named rl-utils folder
in the ia directory.

https://github.com/martin-tornqvist/rl_utils

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Now, install CMake. The actual version doesn't matter too much, since it's
just building makefiles and not doing anything deeper than that.

https://cmake.org/download/

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Install Code::Blocks. IMPORTANT: Do *not* install versions with MinGW. We will
separately install MinGW-w64 ourselves.

http://www.codeblocks.org/downloads/26#windows

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Install MinGW-w64.

https://mingw-w64.org/doku.php/download/mingw-builds

Follow the link, which goes to a SourceForge download page. The installer will
list some options to use with MinGW-w64 -- the defaults (i686, posix, dwarf)
got me the least amount of errors. In any case, I recommend *not* using the
x86_64 options, which did not work with CMake.

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Run CMake.

As the IA Github says:
"For 'Where is the source code?' select the root folder of the ia repo (NOT
the 'src' folder), and for 'Where to build the binaries?' select a folder
called 'build' in the ia repo (the "build" folder may not actually exist yet,
but it doesn't matter, just specify this path). Run 'Configure' and
'Generate'."

When you run 'Configure', you'll be asked about the generator and compilers.
Use "CodeBlocks - MinGW Makefiles" and "Specify native compilers". On the
screen to specify the compilers, you'll want to find the MinGW-w64 execs and
put them in. They'll be at somewhere like:
C:\Program Files (x86)\mingw-w64\i686-posix...\mingw32\bin
where the ... is in place of the long config'd name. You'll want to use
"i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe" for the C compiler and "i686-w64-mingw32-g++.exe"
for the C++ compiler. We can ignore the Fortran one.

If you get a series of errors complaining about a missing libintl-8.dll, you
need to put the bin folder containing the MinGW-w64 execs into your PATH.

You can follow the steps here:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm

But essentially, right-click on the Windows logo in your taskbar. Go to
System. Click "Advanced system settings" in the left pane, and then
"Environment variables" in the window that pops up. In the bottom section --
System variables -- you should click on the Path line and then edit. Add a
line with the bin folder of the MinGW-w64 execs, as you located before.

So, again, do all the above, and you should be able "Configure" and "Generate"
the Makefile successfully.

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Run Code::Blocks.

In Code::Blocks, you'll have to set some minor things up first.

In the top menu bar, go to Settings->Compiler. Go to the "Toolchain
executables" header. You can try and see if Code::Blocks detects the MinGW-w64
install with "Auto-detect." If that doesn't work, input the bin folder with
the MinGW-w64 execs as you did before in CMake.

Change the existing names to their correct MinGW-w64 counterparts. So, gcc.exe
should be "i686-w64-mingw32-gcc.exe" and so on. The last two programs --
windres.exe and mingw32-make.exe -- will probably keep their names unchanged.

From there, you can begin building:

In the file menu, open up "ia.cbp" located in the build folder of the Infra
Arcana folder.

Now, per the IA github:
"In the drop-down target list (near the top of the screen) select the 'ia'
target. Build by clicking on the yellow cogwheel, then run the game by
clicking on the green arrow."

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If you followed everything, hopefully you shouldn't get any errors while
building and hopefully the game will run (via CodeBlocks, at least).