Add readme/instructions for MSVC based builds (openscad#6140)

Author: Sparsh-N

README.md

@@ -225,6 +225,9 @@ OpenSCAD for Windows is usually cross-compiled from Linux. If you wish to
 attempt an MSVC build on Windows, please see this site:
 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenSCAD_User_Manual/Building_on_Windows
 
+MSVC build support has been added to OpenSCAD. For instructions on how to build it,
+refer to [building with MSVC](doc/win-build.md).
+
 To cross-build, first make sure that you have all necessary dependencies 
 of the MXE project ( listed at https://mxe.cc/#requirements ). Don't install
 MXE itself, the scripts below will do that for you under `$HOME/openscad_deps/mxe`

doc/win-build.md

@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+# Build using Visual Studio and vcpkg
+
+Follow these steps to build OpenSCAD with Microsoft Visual Studio:
+
+- Make sure you have git installed and in your PATH. For installing Git, follow the
+  instructions [here](https://github.com/git-guides/install-git).
+  To add a variable to PATH, a tutorial is available [here](https://www.eukhost.com/kb/how-to-add-to-the-path-on-windows-10-and-windows-11/)
+- Install Visual Studio 2022. Check the 'Desktop development with C++' component
+  in the VS installer.
+- Download WinFlexBison binaries from the project's Github page:
+  https://github.com/lexxmark/winflexbison. Unzip it somewhere convenient and
+  add that location to your PATH.
+- Install vcpkg in a convenient location with a short path (this is important),
+  e.g. c:\vcpkg or d:\vcpkg. Instructions are at
+  https://vcpkg.io/en/getting-started but an even shorter version is to do:
+
+    ```
+    cd d:\vcpkg
+    git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg.git
+    .\vcpkg\bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
+    ```
+- Then add d:\vcpkg to your PATH.
+  Clone the OpenSCAD repo somewhere (in this example, d:\openscad) and run
+  scripts\win-msvc-build.bat in it:
+  
+    ```
+    git clone https://github.com/openscad/openscad.git
+    cd openscad
+    scripts\win-msvc-build.bat
+    ```
+
+What that batch file does is first install all required packages through vcpkg,
+then generate Visual Studio project files in the 'build' directory and finally
+builds Release and Debug versions. Results will be in build\Debug and
+build\Release.
+
+If you encounter issues installing vcpkg packages, a solution is manually installing via `vcpkg install dep:x64-windows`, and disabling manifest mode installation. A helpful command for doing this can be found in `scripts/win-msvc-build.bat`
+
+For building OpenSCAD with GUI mode on (Work in Progress), a [branch](https://github.com/Sparsh-N/openscad/tree/msvc-gui) can be used. For this, you would need Qt and QScintilla installed and compiled from source, not vcpkg.

scripts/win-msvc-build.bat

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ mkdir build
 rem Change the option CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE to your installation. Below are 2 initial ways to build.
 rem 1) Headless Build
 cmake -B build -S . -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=D:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DHEADLESS=ON -DUSE_BUILTIN_OPENCSG=TRUE -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS="/manifest:no" -DCMAKE_MODULE_LINKER_FLAGS="/manifest:no" -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS="/manifest:no" -DTBB_DIR=D:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/tbb
-rem 2) GUI Build (Needs Qt Installed from Source, not vcpkg)
+rem 2) GUI Build (Needs Qt and QScintilla Installed from Source, not vcpkg)
 rem cmake -B build -S . -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=D:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake -DUSE_BUILTIN_OPENCSG=TRUE -DUSE_QT6=ON -DCMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS="/manifest:no" -DCMAKE_MODULE_LINKER_FLAGS="/manifest:no" -DCMAKE_SHARED_LINKER_FLAGS="/manifest:no" -DTBB_DIR=D:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/tbb -Dunofficial-qscintilla_DIR="D:/vcpkg/installed/x64-windows/share/unofficial-qscintilla"
 
 rem Second step of build process, each build should take ~30 mins for a Headless build.