Setting up Development Environment

Setup

Install devkitA64. If it's already installed, update it using sudo (dkp-)pacman -Syu. On Windows, there's a graphical installer. On Unix-like platforms such as Linux/macOS, there's pacman.

devkitPro also provides a set of Docker images which come pre-installed with all the portlibs packages.

Please note: devkitPro is the organisation that provides the tools. They are not a software package, they don't have version numbers and the only way to have them compile your code is to pay them (or maybe if you ask nicely when you need help figuring out an issue)

Windows

devkitPro provides 64-bit precompiled Windows binaries of devkitA64 which can be run directly on Windows.

• If you already use msys2 then you can follow the instructions at https://github.com/devkitPro/pacman/releases/latest to add the devkitPro repositories.

Otherwise

• download the latest version of the graphical installer from github and run it, following the instructions as you go.
• An Internet connection is required.
• Ensure at least "Switch Development" is ticked - you can also leave the other options ticked if you wish.
• Once the installer has finished, launch MSYS from:
  • Windows 7 and earlier: Start -> All Programs -> devkitPro -> MSYS
  • Windows 8 and 8.1: Right click on the Start screen and select 'All Apps'. You should find MSYS there.
  • Windows 10 (pre-Anniversary Update): Start -> All Apps -> devkitPro -> MSYS
  • Windows 10 (post-Anniversary Update): Start -> devkitPro -> MSYS

Setting up VSCode

VSCode is a open-source text editor from Microsoft available on multiple platforms. Its configurability makes it very useful as an IDE replacement.

Shell

• For VSCode to use the MSYS2 shell from devkitPro you'll have to set the "terminal.integrated.shell.windows" and "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows" properties.

{
   "terminal.integrated.shell.windows": "C:\\devkitPro\\msys2\\msys2_shell.cmd",
   "terminal.integrated.shellArgs.windows": ["-defterm", "-mingw64", "-no-start", "-here"]
}

Build task

• The shell VSCode uses to run build tasks is different from the other shell. You have to manually override the default shell by passing an argument in the options part of the configuration.
• Please note the '-shell bash -c'. It prevents bash from idling after the command and exits immediately.

"options": {
  "shell": {
    "executable": "C:\\devkitPro\\msys2\\msys2_shell.cmd",
    "args": ["-defterm", "-mingw64", "-no-start", "-here", "-shell bash -c"]
  }
},

Unix-like platforms

Currently devkitPro provides precompiled versions of devkitA64 for the following Unix-like platforms: Linux (x86_64), macOS (x86_64). Note that Linux x86_64 binaries are usable under WSL.

• Follow the instructions to install pacman found at https://github.com/devkitPro/pacman/releases/latest
• run sudo (dkp-)pacman -S switch-dev to install the tools and libraries for switch development
• logout and login again to get the environment settings needed.

Building the examples

Switch examples are still being created; however, there are a growing number of examples available from the switchbrew/switch-examples GitHub repository. These are downloaded by the installer and can be found in $DEVKITPRO/examples/switch

These can be built from the command line.

To start a new homebrew project from the bash shell, simply type the following (replacing ~/projects/myswitchproject with the place you would like your project to be stored, with ~ meaning your HOME directory):

cp -r $DEVKITPRO/examples/switch/templates/application ~/projects/myswitchproject
cd ~/projects/myswitchproject

The standard Makefile will use the folder as the name of the .nro that will be built. You can keep that behaviour or simply change the TARGET := $(notdir $(CURDIR)) line in the Makefile to explicitly name your project.

To compile it, type make in the project directory.