karl-/vuo

A realtime visual programming language for interactive media.

These instructions are for building Vuo Base, Vuo Compiler, Vuo Renderer, Vuo Runtime, Vuo Editor, and the built-in Vuo Nodes and Types from source code.

Vuo's source code is available so you can learn about how Vuo works, play with it, and maybe even help develop Vuo.

You do not need to build Vuo from source if you want to:

• run the Vuo editor application. The Vuo editor application is available as a separate download.
• develop an application that uses Vuo. Instead, download the Vuo SDK, and follow the instructions on api.vuo.org under the section "Developing Applications that use Vuo".
• develop nodes and types for Vuo. Instead, download the Vuo SDK, and follow the instructions on api.vuo.org under the section "Developing Node Classes and Port Types".

Translating Vuo

Vuo uses the Qt Framework's translation system in its source code, and POEditor to manage translations online. Sign up here to help translate Vuo: https://poeditor.com/join/project/KJuvGOpptm

Building Vuo on macOS

Install required dependencies

Xcode

Install a recent version of Xcode (version 3.2 or later).

Accept the Xcode license by opening Xcode.app or running:

xcodebuild -license

Install Command Line Tools for Xcode:

• Launch Xcode
• Select the Xcode menu > Preferences > Downloads
• Next to "Command line tools", click "Install"

Homebrew

Install Homebrew:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go/install)"
brew doctor

Review the results of brew doctor and fix any problems it finds, then install the dependencies:

brew bundle

Conan

• cd to the Vuo source code folder.
• mkdir build
• cd build
• On macOS:
  • conan config install https://vuo.org/sites/default/files/conan-macos.zip
  • Conan may output WARN: Remotes registry file missing, creating default one — that's OK.
• On Linux:
  • conan config install https://vuo.org/sites/default/files/conan-linux.zip
• conan install ..

Build Vuo using Qt Creator

Install Qt Creator.

Launch Qt Creator.

• In Preferences:
  • In Kits:
    • In the Kits tab, select the default kit and remove the content of "CMake Configuration"
    • In the Qt Versions tab:
      • Delete all the existing versions
      • Click Add, press Command-Shift-G and enter ~/.conan, then navigate to data/qt/<latest version>/vuo/stable/package/<package id>/bin/qmake
      • (You'll see "Qt version is not properly installed" in the dialog, and "Cannot read …/qmake.conf" in the General Messages tab — those errors are safe to ignore.)
  • In Environment > Locator:
    • Uncheck the Default checkboxes for:
      • All Included C/C++ Files
      • Files in Any Project
    • Add a new directory filter:
      • Name: Vuo trunk
      • Directories: pick your working copy folder
      • File pattern: *.h,*.hh,*.c,*.cc,*.m,*.mm,*.md,*.glsl,*.vs,*.fs,*.qml,*.ui,*.qrc,*.txt,*.cmake,*.feature,*.php
      • Exclusion pattern: */.git/*,*/build/*
  • In C++, select the File Naming tab:
    • Change Header suffix to "hh"
    • Change Source suffix to "cc"
    • Uncheck the "Lower case file names" checkbox
  • In Build & Run:
    • In General, change "Default build directory" to build
• Open CMakeLists.txt
  • In the list of kits, click Details, and uncheck all the targets except "Default"
  • Click Configure Project
• In Projects (the wrench near the top left):
  • Build > Build Steps > Build, click Details, then set Tool Arguments to -j8 (or however many cores your processor has)
  • (optional, to colorize build steps) Build > Build Environment, click Details, click Add, and set CLICOLOR_FORCE to 1
• In the target selector (the computer icon near the bottom left), select VuoEditorApp
• In the Search Results panel at the bottom of the window, set Exclusion Pattern to **/build/**

Build Vuo from the command line

As an alternative to using Qt Creator (above), you can build from the command line.

First, generate the makefiles:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..

Build:

make -j8

Run Vuo Editor:

make go

…or open the build/bin folder in Finder and double-click Vuo.app.

Optionally, build and run the tests:

# Build and run the quick tests (should take just a minute or two to run).
make -j8 VuoTest
ctest -j8 --output-on-failure              # Runs all quick tests
ctest -j8 --output-on-failure -R Compiler  # Runs only the tests matching the regex
ARG="testAddingAndRemovingModules:compiled node class, user, not loading all modules" ctest -V -R ModuleLoading  # Runs only the test datum in the arg

# Or build and run all the tests (takes over an hour to run).
cmake .. -DVUO_TEST_LONG=ON
make -j8 VuoTest
ctest -j8 --output-on-failure

Optionally, build the examples:

cmake .. -DVUO_TEST_LONG=ON
make -j8 TestExamples

You can now run the example compositions from the command line. For example:

test/TestExamples/AddNoiseToClay

You can now run the command-line tools:

bin/vuo-compile --help
bin/vuo-link --help
bin/vuo-debug --help

Developer shortcuts

Vuo's build system includes some shortcuts to make development more efficient.

Compiler development mode

Allows you to make changes to VuoBase and VuoCompiler without rebuilding all nodes and types (but you're responsible for keeping track of whether nodes and types need to be rebuilt). Saves several minutes per edit-compile-test cycle.

cmake .. -DVUO_COMPILER_DEVELOPER=ON
cmake .. -DVUO_COMPILER_DEVELOPER=OFF

Node development mode

Allows you to make changes to nodes, types, and libraries without rebuilding the Vuo.framework cache. Saves about 30 seconds per edit-compile-test cycle (but compositions take longer to start up initially).

cmake .. -DVUO_NODE_DEVELOPER=ON
cmake .. -DVUO_NODE_DEVELOPER=OFF