Use CMake as buildsystem

[TheKnarf]

Picking a build system that can work on all operating systems would be a first step in the direction of making Transcendence cross-platform.

[gmoromisato]

I would love that! Can you drive that?

First I'd love to know how it interacts with Visual Studio. Is there a plug in? Is it just compatible? How do you add more files? Do you edit the make file or can you do it with the Visual Studio UI? Would love to know more.

The actual build steps are pretty standard, so I think the actual port would be relatively straight forward.

Thanks!

[TheKnarf]

CMake can generate a Visual Studio project file from the CMakeFile, there's no need for a plugin in Visual Studio. However, if you want to add a file (or remove, or move it) you would have to do that in the CMakeFIle and then re-run CMake to get a new Visual Studio file. Similarly, it could generate an XCode-project on MacOS, thereby supporting cross-platform.

[gmoromisato]

Can we automatically generate a CMakeFile from a Visual Studio project/solution?

[TheKnarf]

Not as far as I know. So it's a manual job to make CMakeFile's from a Visual Studio project, but then the other way should be automatic.