Compiling Qt-TeXmacs under Windows

1.Download and install the build environment

In order to compile TeXmacs under Windows, you need Qt, MinGW and a certain number of libraries. We have simplified the installation procedure for these dependencies by creating a single zip-file which contains all necessary stuff. Thus, you first have to download (195 Mb)

    TmBuildEnv.zip

or older versions here. This file must be uncompressed in the directory of your choice as long as the path does not contain white space (i.e Documents directory). To open a command shell you have to run the msys.bat windows command file. It is located in the subdirectory MINGW/msys/1.0/. The best way is to create a shortcut to this file from your desktop.

At the first run, the msys command creates the file /etc/fstab with a table of mounted devices. If you want to relocate the whole MINGW environment, it is mandatory to delete the fstab file in order to rebuild the correct mounting paths.

2.Download TeXmacs

Click on the MSYS icon on your desktop in order to launch a Unix terminal and fetch the latest Svn version of TeXmacs as follows:

mkdir ~/texmacs
cd ~/texmacs
svn co svn://svn.savannah.gnu.org/texmacs/trunk/src

3.Compile TeXmacs

Go to the directory with the TeXmacs sources

cd ~/texmacs/src

Configure the environment using. You can use -h parameter to view configuration options

./configure

Build TeXmacs

make WINDOWS_BUNDLE

Run TeXmacs

~/texmacs/distr/TeXmacs-Windeows/bin/texmacs.exe

The first time you run TeXmacs, the program may crash. This can appear if a previous version has had a configuration file with a different format. You have to remove the TeXmacs directory located in AppData\Roaming (AppData is a hidden directory in your Windows home). Subsequent runs should work fine.

4.Creation of an installer

After building TeXmacs, you can create an installer using the WINDOWS_PACKAGE target

make WINDOWS_PACKAGE

The installer can be found in the directory ~/texmacs/distr/windows/. This installer is a standalone package, so you don't need anything else to enjoy TeXmacs. The MinGW environment is no longer useful.