Re: [AD] Patch for makefile issue when compiling MSVC with Cygwin

[Evert Glebbeek <eglebbk@xxxxxxxxxx>]

First of all: good work!
Now for some comments. Warning: pedantic language checking below!

>     This is a source-only distribution, so you will have to compile 
Allegro 
>     before you can use it. To do this you should:
>  
> +@hnode Setting up environment

Shouldn't that be "Setting up the environment"?
I also don't like a heading following a colon.

> +   (exact location of this file depends on your MSVC version and folder

The exact location

> +   <tt>C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\Bin</tt> and the 
like).

I would write etc. since I don't like the phrase "and the like" , but that 
is probably just personal preference.

> +   In the command line window type type "<tt>fix.bat msvc</tt>" to

One "type" too many

> +   If you are using MSVC 7 you can specify "<tt>msvc7</tt>" instead of 
"<tt>msvc</tt>" to enable
> +   better optimizations. Likewise, you can specify "<tt>icl</tt>" to use 
the Intel
> +   commandline compiler. If you are using MSVC 8 you should specify 
"<tt>msvc8</tt>"
> +   otherwise you will get a lot of deprecation warnings. For MSVC 6 and 
older
> +   you can use also "<tt>msvc6</tt>".

I would phrase this differently, along the following lines:
You can also configure for a specific version of MSVC to enable specific 
optimisations or switches. For example, you  can use <tt>msvc7</tt> for 
MSVC 7 or <tt>msvc8</tt> for MSVC 8. For MSVC8, it is recommended that you 
use msvc8, otherwise the compiler will generate a lot of deprecation 
warnings.
Likewise, you can pass "<tt>icl</tt>" to use the Intel commandline 
compiler.

I'm also not sure about the "MSVC 6 and older" part. Not that anyone uses 
"older" any more, but best not to mention it at all I think.


> +   this may cause a problem. The <tt>fix.bat</tt> normally handles this 
for you so
> +   you should not need to care about this.

This should normally be handled by <tt>fix.bat</tt>, so you probably don't 
need to worry about thus.

> +   it will probably show the long path with spaces. The <tt>fix.bat</tt>
> +   will automatically try to convert it to DOS 8.3 format.

"fix.bat"  isn't a proper noun, so you can't say "the fix.bat". Dropping 
"the" leaves you in the awkward position of starting the sentence with 
"fix.bat", so I would rephrase that as
Normally, <tt>fix.bat</tt> will try to convert it to DOS 8.3 format 
automatically

> +   this conversion by passing <tt>--nomsvcpaths</tt> parameter to

passing the ... parameter

> +   If you want to handle this by yourself manually, you will have to

handle this yourself (drop the by)

> +@hnode Building from CVS

CVS->SVN

> +   If you are compiling from CVS, before continuing you must run both
> +   "<tt>make depend</tt>" and "<tt>misc/fixdll.sh</tt>" as explained 
below,

you need to run [...] and [...] before continuing


> or the build will 
> +   fail asking for some <tt>.inc</tt> file.

or the library will fail to build because of missing <tt>.inc</tt> files.

> +   If you are using MSVC 8  and want to embed manifest files to 
executables
> +   (by default is embedded just into the DLL), 

by default manifests are just embedded in the DLL

(aside: should this be default for executables too?)

> run from command prompt 
> +   "<tt>misc\embedman.bat all</tt>" ("<tt>./misc/embedman.bat all</tt>" 
under Cygwin).

run the command "<tt>misc\embedman.bat all</tt>" from the command prompt 
(Cygwin users run "<tt>misc/embedman.bat all</tt>")


Evert