How to Build Unicode NSIS

1. Get the Source Code

 Download the latest source code by going to the downloads section.

2. Required Tools to Build

The following 3rd party packages are required for building Unicode NSIS.

Python 2.x (32-bit) is a prerequisite for Scons.

2.1. wxWidgets

It is probably best that the wxWidgets is not installed in the default drive which is C: and use the D: drive instead. This is because wxWidgets will need to be compiled to create the libs which can make the final installation size upwards of 500MB.

To build NSIS Menu, install wxWidgets, create an environment variable named WXWIN containing the path to the installation directory of wxWidgets, run Contrib\NSIS Menu\wx\wxbuild.bat and build NSIS as usual.

To create both the ANSI and the Unicode lib files, just run:
>wxbuild.bat

To create the Unicode wxWidgets library, run:
>wxbuild.bat unicode

For the ANSI library, run:
>wxbuild.bat ansi

2.2. HTML Help Workshop

To compile the documentation as a CHM file, 

hhc.exe must be in the PATH. It is available as part of HTML Help Workshop.

2.3. Scons

Scons is a replacement for make that is built on Python.

Therefore, before installing Scons, Python must first be installed. Make sure Scons is in the PATH.

Typically scons.bat gets installed in the Script directory of the Python installation. For example, c:\Python25\Scripts.

3. Build Scripts

There are four batch files that are in our repository for Unicode NSIS.

Script

Description

mkdu.bat

Make debug Unicode

mkru.bat

Make release Unicode.

mkd.bat

Make debug ANSI.

mkr.bat

Make release ANSI.

4. Creating a New Menu Header Image

The following script depends on the Python Imaging Library which is not shipped with the Python distribution. If you do not have PIL installed, download it from http://www.pythonware.com/products/pil/ and install it.

When the version number increases, it becomes necessary to create a new header image that reflect the new version number. This process has been automated with a Python script for the Unicode version. The ANSI source code will have the latest ANSI header image included in its distribution.

Go to Menu\images\Unicode. Run "create_header.py {version number}." For example:

>python create_header.py "2.37"

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