Install MSYS2 and Command Line Tools

MSYS2 provide a unix terminal environment for Windows. We will need this to run the build commands to create our SplashKit programs.

Install MSYS2/MINGW64 Terminal

1. Download the installer from the official MSYS2 website: www.msys2.org

2. To install MSYS2, double-click the downloaded executable file, and follow the on-screen instructions.

   It is strongly recommended that you use the default install path, but you can customise the other installation options as needed.

   Which Terminal?

   MSYS2 comes with a variety of terminal environments. The MINGW64 terminal environment is recommended for 64-bit computers (MINGW32 for 32-bit) as it has been found to support the C# and C++ terminal commands you will use.

   Therefore, you should use the MINGW64 (MSYS2 MINGW64) terminal, which you can find by searching “mingw64” in the Windows Start menu and selecting the MSYS2 MINGW64 App.

   Pin it!

   To make it easier to open each time, you can pin your terminal to the Taskbar.

   • Open MINGW64 terminal.
   • Right-click on the blue MSYS2 App icon in the taskbar.
   • Select “Pin to taskbar”.

Install Command Line Tools

To install SplashKit, you will firstly need to install some command line tools using the pacman package manager.

1. Copy and paste the following command into your MINGW64 terminal window to install the git, clang, gcc and gdb pacman packages:

   pacman -S git mingw-w64-x86_64-clang mingw-w64-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-x86_64-gdb --noconfirm --disable-download-timeout

   Paste commands into MINGW64 Terminal

   Unfortunately, you won’t be able to use Ctrl + V to paste.

   Instead, right-click anywhere in the terminal window and then select Paste.