[Libreoffice] Windows builds with Visual Studio Express

[Fridrich Strba]

Hello, Mathias,

On 17/09/11 00:01, Mathias Bauer wrote:
> As you might know, building with VS Express requires disabling usage of
> ATL headers as they are missing in the Express version.
> When I was working on another project that forced me to build Chromium,
> I found in their build instructions that the MS Windows Driver
> Development Kit contains the necessary atl headers and libs. The WDK can
> be downloaded freely, so I assume that it's OK to use them build with VS
> Express *and* atl (if it works as it sounds).

Thanks for the hint. It is really something to try and modify oowintool
to look for DDK's headers too if it finds the VS2008 Express is used.

I once wondered what we actually use the ATL for, but never had the
motivation to look. Normally Windows developers use ATL to make their
COM+ programming easier. If this is the case for LO, I would even
contend that trying to rewrite those pieces in a plain C++ could be good
idea, because it would allow us to build them with MinGW too.

I did some COM+ programming in evolution in C++ first and then I rewrote
that part in plain C, so I believe that it is something doable.
Although, I have to look what we really use the ATL for.

Cheers

Fridrich