This page is designed to provide you with a thorough and comprehensive setup guide for NDEVR’s API.
Feel free to follow the instructions outlined on this page or download the guide for offline reference here.
2023 NDEVR, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Except as otherwise permitted by NDEVR, LLC., this publication, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form, by any method, or for any purpose. Certain materials included in this publication are reprinted with the permission of the copyright holder.
NDEVR API License
Subject to the terms of the Enterprise+ Agreement, NDEVR hereby grants Licensee a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license (without the right to sublicense) to use the API society solely for the purpose of the Licensee’s internal development efforts to develop applications for which the API was provided.
Disclaimer
THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS MADE AVAILABLE BY NDEVR, LLC. “AS IS”. NDEVR, LLC. DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE REGARDING THESE MATERIALS.
This information should be supplied by a staff member to assist you through the installation procedure below.
If you do not have this information, please contact support@ndevr.org.
This section will guide you through installing and configuring the following software components:
Visual Studio 2022, Qt 6.5.x, Qt Visual Studio Tools, and Vulkan SDK.
Each step is essential, so please follow carefully and review all instructions.
This project and its binaries are built and tested primarily using Visual Studio 2022; therefore, we strongly recommend this IDE.
Note that this section may be skipped if you already have Visual Studio 2022 installed or intend to use a different development environment.
1. Visit this Visual Studio support page to ensure you meet all requirements for installing Visual Studio 2022.
2. Go to this Visual Studio Downloads page and download the 2022 version of Visual Studio.
3. Select the edition of your choice. If you are unsure of which edition is right for you, see this Visual Studio Editions page. For the free edition, select Visual Studio Community.
4. Begin running the installer, and follow the on-screen steps until prompted to select installation items. When prompted, select “Desktop development with C++”.
5. Select “Install” in the bottom right corner to begin the installation. Once the installation is complete, restart your PC.
The NDEVR API uses Qt as its base UI toolset. This project is built and tested primarily using Qt 6.5.x. The binaries are created using these headers and libraries, making this particular version required to guarantee a successful build.
1. Go to this Qt Software page and select a Qt Version to download. Unless you intend to pay for Qt services, select the “Go to open source” option in the top right corner of the page.
2. If prompted, choose “Download” to download the Qt Unified Online installer.
3. Run the installer and log in, or create your Qt account.
4. Proceed through the dialogs until prompted to “Installation Folder”. Select Custom Installation and specify an appropriate folder.
5. If you want to use a version other than the 6.5 long term support, when prompted to “Select Components”, choose “Archive” from the right side. Then, click the “Filter” button and wait. You will now have more versions of Qt available.
6. Dropdown Qt -> Qt 6.5.x. and select “MSVC 2019 64-bit”, “Sources”, “Additional Libraries”, and “Qt Debug Information Files”. Do NOT press the “Next” button yet.
7. Lastly, scroll to the bottom of the list and dropdown Developer and Designer Tools. Select the latest edition of the “OpenSSL Toolkit”.
In order to ensure ease of use within the Visual Studio environment, it is highly recommended that you download Qt Tools for Visual Studio. Specific instructions in this manual may assume you have this tool.
NDEVR Applications built with Visual Studio use WiX to manage the creation of installer MSI files. WiX allows for the customization of MSI installation files and bootstrappers.
Microsoft Installer (MSI) is ideal for developers, focusing on improved deployment and management, particularly for enterprise environments. MSI files offer reliable installation with automatic rollback capabilities, flexibility through custom settings, and compatibility with tools like Active Directory for streamlined, centralized control over installations. These advantages make MSI an ideal choice for efficient, scalable software deployments in larger organizational structures.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page to the Assets section and select the .exe file.
3. Run the .exe and, when prompted, select “Install”.
4. When finished installing, exit the installer.
5. Go to this Visual Studio Marketplace page and download the WiX Visual Studio Extension.Ensure Visual Studio is closed. Run the V
6. SIX extension file to add the extension to Visual
Vulkan SDK is a high-performance 3D graphical application offering efficiency and convenience to NDEVR’s toolset and the primary graphics engine for the desktop application build.
1. Go to this Vulkan page and download the latest SDK Installer for Vulkan SDK.
2. Follow the installation procedure. At Select Components, be sure to select ALL of the components available.
3. Complete the installation. Vulkan SDK will be pathed properly in the next section.
This section will cover setting up user credentials and observing the NDEVR API. It is assumed that all of the steps in Chapter 1 have been completed; specifically, the installation of Visual Studio 2022 and AWS Tools for Visual Studio.
1. Open Visual Studio 2022 and, in the initial startup, choose to “clone or check out code”.
2. Enter the NDEVR Source Address (also given under “NDEVR Software Links and Credentials” toward the top of this page) into the Repository Location.
7. Close Visual Studio and navigate to your chosen folder where the API is stored, also shown above.
8. Read the “ReadMe.txt” file and follow all instructions to complete setting up the environmental variables for the NDEVR API environment.
9. In the same folder, you should find “SetupEnvironment.bat”. Run it, and it will initialize the files needed. Press any key to continue and close.
10. Repeat Steps 1-9 for any other NDEVR-related projects. Be sure to pay close attention to the “ReadMe.txt” file, as this file will have different instructions from library to library.
11. Open Visual Studio again and choose to build “NDEVRLauncher”. You are expected to encounter several errors (visible in the Error List panel at the bottom of Visual Studio), which will be debugged in the following chapter.
This section will go over possible errors concerning surrounding directory names. Note that this guide covers the two guaranteed errors you will encounter, but there may be others. Please contact NDEVR for any persisting issues.
1. Close Visual Studio, search your device for “Edit environment variables for your account”, and open the program.
2. Under “User variables for [USER]”, scroll down to find “VULKAN_DIR” and click “Edit”.
3. Replace the “Variable value” with the same directory you assigned during the Vulkan SDK intsallation.
4. Press “OK” and return to the “Environment variables” page.
1. Continuing from the “Environment variables” page, scroll up to find “NDEVR_QT_VER” and click “Edit”.
2. Rename “Variable value” NOT with any directory, but with a recognizable name (such as “Qt6_5_4” or another representative title).
3. Open Visual Studio and navigate to Extensions -> Qt VS Tools -> Qt Versions at the top of the application.
4. Go to Qt -> Versions and add a new Qt version with the same name from step 2. Copy that directory into the “path” box and press “OK”.
5. Restart Visual Studio and re-build the project.
Note: Should any errors persist, please contact us at support@ndevr.org.
Congratulations on finishing the API User Guide! You are now prepared to take on your next project.
