Building

Structure

NLV is a Python program and relies on customised versions of wxPython & wxWidgets to provide all Windows UI capabilities. These are provided as Git submodules.

NLV relies on NlvLog, a C++ DLL, for all searching, mapping and indexing tasks. The NlvLog DLL makes use of a number of Open Source packages.

Building requires downloading the dependencies, patching wxWidgets, and compiling & packaging the source. It is recommended the supplied build.sh script is used to do this.

Tools

The build machine should have the following tools installed:

  • CygWin: (x32 or x64): base install + git + graphviz + wget + unzip (https://www.cygwin.com/)

  • Python 3.6.x: 64-bit install, ensure Python is added to path (https://www.python.org/)

  • Visual Studio 2015 Community Edition (https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/older-downloads/).

    To run the Unit Tests, install the “Google Test Adapter” extension (from TOOLS | Extensions and Updates | Online).

  • Optionally, Visual Studio 2017 Community Edition (https://www.visualstudio.com/). This toolchain is required to build the VisualStudio extension. If the toolchain is not installed, the extension will not be built.

    In the installer, select the “Visual Studio extension development” workload. Also, under “Individual components” select Windows 10 SDK (10.0.14393.0). The SDK is required to workaround a corruption to the VisualStudio 2015 environment that occurs when VisualStudio 2017 is installed. The corruption causes the WAF builder in wxPython to fail.

Other

Setup

See References for more information on the source dependencies. NLV makes use of the following Open Source projects:

  • BOOST

  • Intel Thread Building Blocks (TBB)

  • GoogleTest

  • JSON v3.1.2

  • wxPython (GIT version 5c7046bdbc9a5a6889363793e2904c4faccd9111)

  • wxWidgets 3.1.1 (GIT version 379a404f9804ac044df44f18907e192917fec8aa)

NLV is distributed as a single archive nlv.rel.xxx.tar.bz2, where xxx is the release number. Compatible versions of BOOST and the Intel TBB library are usually also available. From a CygWin prompt:

$ ls ~/Export
boost_1_63_0.tar.bz2  nlv.rel.200.tar.bz2  tbb-2018_U2.tar.gz

Extract the build setup script from the archive. This only needs to be done once:

$ tar xfj ~/Export/nlv.rel.200.tar.bz2 nlvsetup.sh

The setup script requires two arguments:

  • the path to the NLV archive

  • one of

    • –full, reverts the whole Phoenix tree, triggering a full rebuild

    • –vstc, applies the VSTC patch; implied for –full

    • –quick, no changes to Phoenix/wxWidgets; relatively quick build

where –vstc is recommended.

The script unpacks BOOST/TBB from the archives and fetches the other Open Source projects from GitHub. It then builds all projects:

$ ./nlvsetup.sh nlv.rel.200.tar.bz2 --vstc
=======================================================================
Get release
=======================================================================

...

=======================================================================
==== Build Complete
Installation files can be found in C:\Dev\Installers\200

The script then performs a developer install, which permits Visual Studio to be used to run/debug NLV:

=======================================================================
==== NLV developer environment

...

=======================================================================
NLV development environment installed to C:\Dev\Nlv\_PyEnv\Dbg
Double-click the solution file; ensure the Nlv\_PyEnv\Dbg Python virtual
environment is setup and activated:
  Solution Platforms = x64
  Solution Explorer ] Nlv ] Python Environments ] Add Existing Virtual Environment...
  Solution Explorer ] Nlv ] Python Environments ] Dbg (Python 36) ] Activate Environment

Install

On a deployment machine, copy the install directory from the build machine. The install.bat script installs the resulting Python packages:

C:\Installers\200>install
=======================================================================
Using ..\PyEnvNlv as the Python virtual environment for NLV

=======================================================================
==== NLV

...

Successfully installed Nlv-200 NlvMythTV-200

=======================================================================
NLV installed to \Scripts
In Explorer, right click the file and select "Pin to start"

To install into a specified Python virtual environment, supply the environment’s path to the install script. In this case, it isn’t necessary to copy the install files to the local machine.