Vistual Studio: First steps

Goals

1. Compile and run cocos2d-x tests on the emulator
2. Set a breakpoint in Visual Studio.

Running cpp-test on the Emulator

1. Download cocos2d-x v3.0

2. Unzip it and then go to cocos2d-x/build directory

   $ cd cocos2d-x/build
   

3. Open cocos2d-wp8.vc2012.sln with Visual Studio

   $ start cocos2d-wp8.vc2012.sln
   

4. Set cpp-tests (Windows Phone Silverlight 8) as the default project:

   • Go to the Solution Explorer
   • Right click on cpp-tests (Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
   • Click on Set as StartUp Project

   

5. Run cpp-tests on the Emulator

   • Press the Emulator 8.1 WVGA 4 inch button
   • If an Hyper-V error appears, then you have to enable Hyper-V:
     • Enable Hyper-V on the BIOS
     • And then enable Hyper-V on Windows 8.1 Pro ( it won’t work on the ‘Regular’ edition).

6. If the following Dialog pops-up, just press Retry:

   

And that’s all. You should see the cpp-tests running on the Emulator:

Setting a breakpoint

1. Open any file, like ActionsTest.cpp. Tip: Quick Open file is_Ctrl + ,_
2. Set a breakpoint in any line, by clicking on the left margin, like in Xcode
3. You should see a red dot (like in Xcode).

But if you run cpp-tests, you will see that the red dot is no longer red: it is white now.

The problem is that by default, cpp-tests is treated as a Managed Task by the debugger. You have to change it to Native:

1. Go to Solution Explorer
2. Right click on cpp-tests (Windows Phone Silverlight 8)
3. Go to Properties -> Debug
4. And change UI Task and Agent Task to Native Only

Done! you should be able to set breakpoints on your C++ code now!