Visual Studio, Android Studio, project basic structure
First step is to prepare a placeholder for our project.
*VERY IMPORTANT part missing from most guides is how to organize your folders.
So, first - root folder, where we’ll keep all our projects plus all reusable stuff, such as graphics engine, etc. I’ll call it “CPP” (for C++). Open Windows File Explorer and create "CPP" folder on your local hard drive (usually C:).
Inside of “/CPP” let’s create a folder for our first project. Instead of obvious “Project1” I’ll better call it “a999hello”. Why “a”, why “999”? Well… In my case next project will be “a998” and so on, so the latest one will be always on top of the list. Inside of a999hello we'll later add root folders for Android, PC (and later maybe for other platforms) versions of a999 project. Plus this folder will contain project code reusable in all platforms. So, initial structure is simple: C:/CPP/a999hello/.
Done? Congratulations! Don’t underestimate an importance of this little step. Mark today’s date, maybe it’s a START of Your New Big Project!
2. Install Visual Studio
Google “Visual Studio download”. Proceed to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com
Continue to Download Visual Studio -> Community 2022 (or whatever is current). Download and start installer.
On workloads page checkmark Desktop development with C++. This is the only component we'll need, so - Install.
Then - Launch.
As for color theme, I picked "Light".
Then - Start Visual Studio.
Since we'll need it quite often, a good idea to pin the icon to a taskbar.
That's it for now. Just close it so far, we will return to it later.
3. Install Android Studio
Google “Android Studio download”. Proceed to https://developer.android.com/studio
Download the latest one (when I wrote this, the current one was "Electric Eel").
Start installer-> Next-> Next-> Next -> Install -> Next -> Finish.
After start, if Defender blocks an access - allow access.
Again, a good idea to pin the icon (the round white one) to a taskbar.
We will return to it in the next chapter, but for now we can close it and take a break.
Before we continue, a few words about our next steps: The plan is to create 2 simple C++ projects first (one for PC, and one for Android). After that we’ll see which parts of code are platform-specific and what can be shared between platforms, which will give us an opportunity to build a cross-platform solution. Then - everything else: graphics, 3D, interactivity, and so on.