Creating a Plugin (Rust)

WARNING!!!! PENTANE'S API IS NOT STABLE SO ALL OF THIS IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE!!!!

Prerequisiste Software

• rustup
• Visual Studio Code
• git (For Version Control)

Installation

1. Install Git (Follow the on-screen installer)
2. Install rustup (Follow the instructions on the page)
3. Install Visual Studio Code (Follow the on-screen installer)
4. After the installation is complete, open a terminal and execute the following command: rustup target add i686-pc-windows-msvc to ensure the correct target is installed.

Creating/Building a Plugin

1. Open a terminal and run cargo new <project_name>, where project_name is your desired name for the plugin.
2. Run cd <project_name>, then run code to open Visual Studio Code.
3. Click on cargo.toml and add these lines to the bottom before then saving the file (Ctrl-S):

   [lib]
   crate-type = ["dylib"]
   

4. Right-click on the root of the project directory, and create a new folder named .cargo right next to src.
5. Create a new file inside the .cargo folder named config.toml, and paste these lines into the file before then saving it:

   [build]
   target = ["i686-pc-windows-msvc"]
   

6. Now rename the file src/main.rs to src/lib.rs and open it.
7. Delete all contents and paste this template function in:

   #[no_mangle]
   extern "stdcall" fn Pentane_Main() {
   
   }
   

8. Now open a terminal inside Visual Studio Code, and execute the following command cargo build --release
9. Navigate to your project folder via Windows Explorer, then follow the path ./target/i686-pc-windows-msvc/release/ to locate <project_name>.dll.
10. Copy your newly compiled plugin to Pentane/Plugins.
11. Enable your plugin in Pentane/config.toml.

Congratulations! You have built your first plugin!