Visual D

This is the README file for Visual D, a Visual Studio package providing both project management and language services

Copyright (c) 2010-2019 by Rainer Schuetze, All Rights Reserved

Visual D aims at providing seamless integration of the D programming language into Visual Studio.

For installer download, more documentation and build instructions, please visit http://rainers.github.io/visuald/visuald/StartPage.html. Use forum http://forum.dlang.org/group/digitalmars.D.ide for questions and the D bug tracker https://issues.dlang.org/ to report issues.

Major Features

• Custom Project management

  • all DMD command line options accessible
  • support for GDC and LDC
  • support for resource compiler
  • custom build commands
  • pre/post custom build steps
  • automatic dependency generation
  • automatic link between dependend projects
  • new project templates

• Integration with VC projects

  • seamless integration through build customization
  • DMD and LDC command line options accessible
  • parallel compilation

• Debugger

  • VS debugger extension providing D expression evaluation
  • integrates mago, a debug engine dedicated to D
  • integrates cv2pdb for debugging executables built with the Digital Mars toolchain

• Language Service

  • syntax highlighting with special version/debug and token string support
  • underlining of syntactical errors
  • semantic analysis for code completion, goto definition and tool tips
  • import statement completion
  • parameter info tooltips
  • smart indentation
  • comment/uncomment selection
  • highlight/jump-to matching braces
  • code snippets
  • display of scope at caret position
  • code outlining
  • paste visually from clipboard ring
  • code definition window
  • search and replace dialog based on D tokenizer
  • browse information displayed in object browser and class view
  • help on language and runtime library

• Other

  • symbol/file search window
  • profiler window
  • C++ to D conversion wizard
  • dustmite integration
  • disassembly view synchronized with source code

• Supported Visual Studio versions

  • VS 2008 - VS 2019, Community, Professional or Enterprise versions

  Express versions of Visual Studio do not support this kind of extensions. If you need to use these old version, use the Visual Studio Shell instead:

  • VS 2008 Shell: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=9771
  • VS 2010 Shell: no longer available
  • VS 2012 Shell: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30670
    • http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30663

  If you are using the Visual Studio Shell 2008 or 2010, it misses one file, that is needed for the conversion of the debug information by cv2pdb. This is msobj80.dll for VS2008 and msobj100.dll for VS2010 and must be extracted from a standard installation, the Visual C Express edition or the Windows SDK. You might also find it installed by other Microsoft products.

• Includes tools to

  • convert some idl/h files of the Windows SDK to D
  • convert all idl/h files from the Visual Studio Integration SDK to D
  • convert C++ code to D (which was targeted at machine-translating the DMD front end to D, but this was abandoned)
  • convert Java code to D (which was targeted at machine-translating parts of the Eclipse plugin Descent to D, but this was abandoned)

• Completely written in D2

License information

This code is distributed under the terms of the Boost Software License, Version 1.0. For more details, see the full text of the license in the file LICENSE_1.0.txt.

The installer comes with a number of additional products:

• cv2pdb: https://github.com/rainers/cv2pdb by Rainer Schuetze
• mago: http://dsource.org/projects/mago_debugger by Aldo Nunez
• DParser: https://github.com/aBothe/D_Parser by Alexander Bothe

Installation

The click-through-installer will guide you through the installation process. The installer lets you select the Visual Studio Version for which you want Visual D to be installed. It will always install for all users, not only for a single user.

To compile your application, you must have DMD, LDC or GDC installed. For LDC and GDC, after installation you must setup Visual D to find them: see Tools->Options->Projects and Solutions->Visual D Settings->LDC Directories and GDC Directories, respectively.

Changes

For documentation on the changes between this version and previous versions, please see the file CHANGES.

Building Visual D

In a nutshell:

• install the Visual Studio SDK
• start Visual Studio VS 2013+ and load solution visuald_vs10.sln
• select configuration "Debug COFF32|Win32"
• build project "build"
• build project "VisualD"

For more information, visit http://rainers.github.io/visuald/visuald/BuildFromSource.html

More Information

For more information on installation, a quick tour of Visual D with some screen shots and feedback, please visit the project home for Visual D at http://rainers.github.io/visuald/visuald/StartPage.html.

There's a forum dedicated to IDE discussions (http://forum.dlang.org/group/digitalmars.D.ide), where you can leave your comments and suggestions. Bug reports can be filed to the D bugzilla database for Component VisualD.

Have fun, Rainer Schuetze