CFGEditorPlusPlus

A cross-platform rewrite using C++/Qt graphical editor of the classic CFGEditor for the Pixi/SpriteToolSuperDelux sprite inserter tool for SMW. All info and documentation can be found here.

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Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
  • Linux
  • Windows
• Building
  • Linux - dynamic build (development)
  • Linux - static build
  • Windows - dynamic build (for installer)
  • Windows - static build (standalone .exe)
• Packaging
  • Linux - AppImage
  • Windows - installer (ICFGEditor.exe)
• CI/CD

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Prerequisites

Linux prerequisites

Install the following with your package manager. On Ubuntu/Debian:

sudo apt install \
  build-essential cmake ninja-build perl python3 pkg-config \
  libx11-dev libx11-xcb-dev \
  libxcb1-dev libxcb-cursor-dev libxcb-icccm4-dev libxcb-image0-dev \
  libxcb-keysyms1-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-render0-dev \
  libxcb-render-util0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev \
  libxcb-sync-dev libxcb-util-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev \
  libxcb-xinerama0-dev libxcb-xkb-dev \
  libxkbcommon-dev libxkbcommon-x11-dev \
  libfontconfig-dev libfreetype-dev \
  libgl-dev libegl-dev

You also need a Qt 6 installation. The recommended way is via aqtinstall:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install aqtinstall

# Install the dynamic Qt (needed for development builds and AppImage packaging)
.venv/bin/aqt install-qt linux desktop 6.11.0 -O .

This places the Qt installation at 6.11.0/gcc_64/.

Windows prerequisites

• Visual Studio 2022 with the "Desktop development with C++" workload (MSVC v143 toolchain)
• CMake ≥ 3.5 (bundled with Visual Studio or from cmake.org)
• Ninja (bundled with Visual Studio)
• vcpkg (available at C:/vcpkg - pre-installed on GitHub Actions runners)
• Qt 6 - either:
  • A standard Qt Online Installer installation to C:\Qt\6.x\msvc2022_64\ (for dynamic builds)
  • Or the pre-built static Qt archive (for static builds - see below)

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Building

Linux - dynamic build (development)

A standard dynamic build links against the Qt shared libraries from 6.11.0/gcc_64/:

cmake -S . -B build \
    -G Ninja \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
    -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$(pwd)/6.11.0/gcc_64"

cmake --build build --parallel

The binary is at build/CFGEditorPlusPlus. It requires the Qt .so files to be present (either via the 6.11.0/gcc_64/ tree or a system Qt installation).

Linux - static build

A static build produces a single fully self-contained binary. It requires building Qt from source first.

Step 1 - build static Qt (one-time, takes ~30–60 minutes):

# Make sure all prerequisites above are installed, then:
./build_qt_static.sh
# Qt will be installed to 6.11.0/static/

The script downloads the Qt 6.11.0 sources automatically via aqtinstall if they are not already present.

Step 2 - build the application:

cmake -S . -B build \
    -DCFGEDITOR_BUILD_STATIC=ON \
    -DSTATIC_QT_DIR="$(pwd)/6.11.0/static" \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

cmake --build build --parallel

Note: CFGEDITOR_BUILD_STATIC=ON requires CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release (or RelWithDebInfo / MinSizeRel). A debug static build is intentionally rejected.

The binary is at build/CFGEditorPlusPlus and has no Qt runtime dependencies.

Windows - dynamic build (for installer)

This produces CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe plus the required Qt DLLs, which are then bundled into the installer package. Requires a standard Qt Online Installer installation under C:\Qt\.

.\build_script.ps1

The script automatically locates the newest Qt 6 installation at C:\Qt\6.*\msvc2022_64\, sets up the MSVC environment via vswhere, and runs CMake + Ninja.

Output: build\CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe and the Qt DLLs copied alongside it by windeployqt.

Windows - static build (standalone .exe)

This produces a single .exe with no external DLL dependencies. It requires the pre-built static Qt archive.

Step 1 - obtain the static Qt build:

Download and extract Qt6Static.7z from www.atarismwc.com/Qt6Static.7z into a directory named Qt6Static at the repository root (or anywhere - pass its path to CMake). This is the same archive used by the CI workflow.

Step 2 - install vcpkg dependencies:

vcpkg install zlib:x64-windows-static

Step 3 - configure and build:

cmake -S . -B build `
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release `
    -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=C:/vcpkg/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake `
    -DSTATIC_QT_DIR="$PWD/Qt6Static" `
    -DCFGEDITOR_BUILD_STATIC=ON

cmake --build build --config Release

Output: build\Release\CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe - a fully standalone executable.

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Packaging

Linux - AppImage

The build_appimage.sh script produces a portable CFGEditorPlusPlus-x86_64.AppImage using linuxdeploy and its Qt plugin. It uses the dynamic Qt build and bundles all Qt libraries inside the AppImage.

./build_appimage.sh

The script will:

1. Download linuxdeploy-x86_64.AppImage and linuxdeploy-plugin-qt-x86_64.AppImage automatically if they are not present in the repository root.
2. Build the application against 6.11.0/gcc_64/ (dynamic Qt).
3. Package everything into CFGEditorPlusPlus-x86_64.AppImage.

AppImage portability:

Requirement	Minimum version
Architecture	x86_64
Linux kernel	2.6.32
glibc	2.34 (Ubuntu 22.04 / Fedora 35 / Debian 12 or newer)
X11 or XWayland	required (no native Wayland support)
Mesa / GPU driver	required (OpenGL)
fontconfig + freetype	required (font rendering)

The AppImage bundles Qt 6 and all xcb extension libraries. Everything else (glibc, libstdc++, OpenGL/EGL, libX11, fontconfig, freetype) must be present on the host.

Windows - installer (ICFGEditor.exe)

The Windows installer is produced by the C# project in packaging/windows/.

How it works:

1. build_script.ps1 (in this repo) builds the dynamic Qt release.
2. zip_script.py packages the output into CFGEditor.zip:
   • CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe
   • Qt6*.dll (core Qt libraries)
   • imageformats\*.dll, platforms\*.dll, styles\*.dll (Qt plugins)
3. CFGEditor.zip is copied to packaging/windows/Properties/CFGEditor.zip.
4. MSBuild compiles packaging/windows/CFGEditorInstaller.csproj, embedding the zip as a resource into ICFGEditor.exe.
5. When a user runs ICFGEditor.exe, it extracts the ZIP next to itself and creates a shortcut CFGEditor.lnk pointing to the extracted CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe.

To build the installer locally:

.\build_script.ps1
python zip_script.py build/Release
Copy-Item CFGEditor.zip packaging\windows\Properties\CFGEditor.zip
msbuild packaging\windows\CFGEditorInstaller.csproj /p:Configuration=Release

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CI/CD

GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/cmake.yml)

Triggered on every push to master, pull requests targeting master, and on version tags (v*). All three artifacts are produced on every run; only tag pushes create a GitHub Release.

Jobs:

Job	Runner	What it produces
build-windows	windows-latest	CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe (static, no DLL deps) + ICFGEditor.exe (installer)
build-linux	ubuntu-22.04	CFGEditorPlusPlus-x86_64.AppImage
release	ubuntu-latest	GitHub Release with all three files (tag pushes only)

Stable download URLs (updated automatically on each tagged release):

File	URL
Windows static exe	https://github.com/Atari2/CFGEditorPlusPlus/releases/latest/download/CFGEditorPlusPlus.exe
Windows installer	https://github.com/Atari2/CFGEditorPlusPlus/releases/latest/download/ICFGEditor.exe
Linux AppImage	https://github.com/Atari2/CFGEditorPlusPlus/releases/latest/download/CFGEditorPlusPlus-x86_64.AppImage