Windows Build Environment

The MyPaint project builds for Windows using MSYS2, a development environment based off of Cygwin with a focus on building Windows-native software.

1. Follow MSYS2’s getting started guide. The MSYS2 environment will either be installed at c:\msys32 or c:\msys64.
2. Install important development dependencies

$ pacman --sync --needed --noconfirm base-devel mingw-w64-{i686,x86_64}-toolchain

Building GTK3 From Source

GTK3 (the GUI toolkit used by MyPaint) is packaged in the MSYS shell, but you may want to install it from source. Unless specified otherwise, run these commands in the MSYS shell.

1. Download and unpack GTK3:
   • The following code block unpacks GTK3 into src/gtk3 (C:\msys32\usr\src\MINGW-packages\mingw-w64-gtk3-git\src\gtk3 in the Windows filesystem).

$ cd /usr/src
$ git clone https://github.com/Alexpux/MINGW-packages.git
$ cd MINGW-packages/mingw-w64-gtk3-git
$ makepkg-mingw --syncdeps --nobuild   # unpack but don't build

2. Build GTK3:
   • makepkg-mingw normally builds for both MINGW32 and MINGW64. The MINGW_INSTALLS variable species which target to build for.

$ MINGW_INSTALLS=mingw64  makepkg-mingw --force --holdver --noextract

3. Install GTK3:
   • The results of the final build command are .pkg.tar.xz files in the mingw-w64-gtk3-git folder.

$ ls *.pkg.tar.xz
$ pacman -U "mingw-w64-{{{ VARIOUS SPECIFICS HERE }}}.pkg.tar.xz"

4. Test the installation using e.g. gtk3-demo from the MINGW32 or MINGW64 shell.