Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for plugins

[osx-addict]

I was hoping to find a sticky here outlining the requirements for doing plugin development but found nothing without doing more searching.. Perhaps we can have a sticky for those of us newbies that are contemplating the 'plug-in' experience --

So, to try to summarize the requirements for plugin development -- I think I ran across the following needs :

1. Target a build against .NET framework 2.0 as the bare minimum -- newer frameworks such as 4.x are considerably larger,etc.
   
2. You can probably use Visual Studio Express 2012 (for example) which is free and can be downloaded here
   
3. Target a 32-bit environment since NPVR is 32-bit (from what I read somewhere)
   

Is that about right? Any other requirements we should know about?

[whurlston]

1. Target .Net 2.0 or 3.5. Targeting 4.0/4.5 can be problematic but I can't remember exactly which issues I ran into.
   
2. I use VS 2010 (and so does sub for the main development I believe). VS Express 2012 for Desktop should work but I haven't tried it.
   
3. Yup, target 32 bit (x86).
   

There are some sample plugins in the sticky @ http://forums.nextpvr.com/showthread.php...o-we-start that can get you started.

[osx-addict]

Thanks! Since the 2012 version is free and easy to get I'll probably give it a shot at some point.. Unfortunately too much 'home-drama' going on right now.. (in the middle of a house re-fi, kids getting in trouble at school,etc)

[imilne]

Did I not read something about the free 2012 version only targeting Win8/Metro apps for now? Could be wrong, but you might want to double check...

Iain

[whurlston]

I heard that too but apparently MS actually listened to the criticism this time. They now have an "Express for Windows 8" and an "Express for Windows Desktop" and I assume the first is the Metro targeted version.

[osx-addict]

The Express for Windows Desktop claims to be fine for Windows 7 SP1 and claims you can target Windows8 if you want but I read that as also working for W7 as well.. although it didn't specifically call it out