How to create a PPAPI plugin for Google Chrome in Windows?

Question

I am new to PPAPI development and have downloaded the already examples from here

However, even after coming across the documentation, I am not able to build the project.

I have Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, Windows OS and Chrome:30.0.1599.65

I understand that once a dll is created, using the regsvr32 command will register the plugin, although getting the dll, even with available code, seems tough for me. Any help for building the dll is appreciated.

Solution

You will want to start here to download the and set up the SDK: https://developers.google.com/native-client/sdk/download

This page will take you through how to build and run the examples: https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/sdk/examples

This page goes over how to actually create your own plugin: https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/devguide/tutorial/tutorial-part1

And then you should read this entire section to code and structure your application: https://developer.chrome.com/native-client/devguide/coding/application-structure

If you need any third party libraries be sure to check here: https://chromium.googlesource.com/webports

Edit: Forgot to mention that you will want to use the same version of the pepper api as the version of chrome you're running (in this case pepper_30). Also, you have to use the NaCl toolchain (one of either glibc, newlib, or pnacl); you can't use the Visual C/C++ toolchains. I recommend trying pnacl now that it is available, as that is by far the most cross platform version, but if you run into trouble, you'll probably want to use the newlib toolchain as it has better support.

Comments

[Admin]

Can I use make to run the test examples? There is a Makefile in github.com/adobe/chromium/tree/master/ppapi/tests/clang I have been trying to run this, but getting errors.

[DRayX]

You will have a hard time building those ppapi tests. I suggest trying to build one of the examples provided with the SDK. If you really need to build that test (it isn't an example) you will need to use clang (another C/C++ toolchain). However, from a cursory look, those tests aren't actually built in NaCl, nor do they generate a PPAPI plugin. I have never gotten clang working on Windows, but it is apparently possible. See clang.llvm.org/get_started.html for instructions using Visual Studio. I would probably use MinGW instead, but I can't find decent instructions for that.