Last modified 14 months ago Last modified on 2023-01-11 07:07:58

Loading and compiling the Ecopath source code

In order to load the EwE6 sources into a development environment, please follow these instructions:

  1. If you have not done so, download and install the latest version of Visual Studio or Visual Studio Community Edition.
  2. If you have not done so, obtain the EwE6 sources from SVN.
  3. Open the file [Ecopath_dev]\Ecopath6\Sources\EwE6.sln, where [Ecopath_dev] is the folder where you downloaded the sources from SVN.

Your development environment will now load the EwE source code.

A note for Windows 11 users: if the solution fails to load (with errors claiming that your operating system is not configured to run this application) or if you experience unexpected compile errors, then simply launch your development environment with Administrator privileges. This provides Visual Studio with a few more folder write permissions, which seems to make most unexpected errors go away.

If you are loading the sources into your development environment for the first time, you will need to make two adjustments to make sure that the sources compile and run well:

  1. Make sure the Solution Explorer panel is visible (by default shown on the right side in the development environment). You can make the Solution Explorer appear via Menu > View > Other Windows > Solution Explorer (in Visual Studio) or via Menu > View > Other Windows > Solution Explorer (in Visual Basic Express).
  2. In the Solution Explorer panel browse to the Project Scientific Interface.
  3. Right click on Scientific Interface > Set as Startup Project. The EwE6 application can only be started by launching the Scientific Interface project.
  4. In the Solution Explorer, right-click the Solution, and select Configuration Manager.... Change the Active Solution Platform from 'Any CPU' to 'x86' if you have the 32-bit version of the Access database drivers installed, or 'x64' if you are using the 64-bit version the Access drivers. This is unfortunately necessary to help Windows find the Microsoft Access database drivers on your system when EwE6 needs them.

Now you are ready to compile and run the EwE sources:

  1. Hit F5 to compile and run the application.