How to build c++ code outside of microsoft visual studio

Question

(Noob here, so apologies for the very basic question). Currently I mostly use Sublime Text for editing code. However to compile I alt-tab to MSVC and compile there and then alt-tab again to a file browser and launch my .exe file. I am looking for a way to optimise this and not having to alt-tab all the time.

So first question is: Is there way to make Sublime Text compile a MSVC C++ project ? I know you can press Ctrl-B, but then you have to know how to set-up all the compiler options link all the libraries (and this was a total nightmare for me to do in MSVC, so preferrably I do not have to do this again for some other compiler).

Second question is: Once the .exe is compiled, is there way to make Sublime launch the .exe (now I have to look it up in my file browser each time, which is a huge pain).

Answer 1

For once I do have a solution !

Here it is :

• You have to be able to create shortcuts in ST to launch an external app I've tried this in ST3
• You probably have Visual Studio solution at this point, so you need to create a shortcut to start MSBuild.exe
• Create a shortcut to start your .exe

I found an old script that uses MSBuild to build an old solution like that :

%PATH_TO_MSBUILD%\MSBuild.exe %SLN_ABSOLUTE_PATH% /t:Clean /t:%TARGET% /p:Configuration=%MODE_COMPILATION%

Hope this helps.