Bug 405662

SUMMARY

Please add support for MS Visual Studio 2019, currently available in preview and RC and scheduled for release April 2 (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/visualstudio/visual-studio-2019-release-candidate-rc-now-available/)

Along the way I encountered some documentation and error handling that I think can be improved on.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Following https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Build_from_source/Windows setup powershell and start installation.
2. The script asks to choose a compiler and MSVS 2019 is not on the list.
That completes the steps to reproduce.  I pressed on, selecting MSVS 2017, which is not on my system.

OBSERVED RESULT
VS2019 was not a choice.
After continuing with 2017 I got the message

Execute: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\Shared\Python37_64\python.exe c:\Users\rdboylan\Documents\src\CraftRoot\craft-master\bin\craft.py craft
Please ensure that you have installed the C++ component

and it stopped.


EXPECTED RESULT

Well, I kind of expected it to fail :)  But it would have been nice if it didn't.

I also expected it would be clear whether or not the installation succeeded; it was not.  That is, the final message sounded as if it could be recommended post-installation setup.  It was also very unclear what exactly was being referred to.

Based on looking at the code I'm pretty sure this was a failure.  The likely immediate cause was that VCTOOLSREDISTDIR was not set.  This was partly because the instructions noted above do not refer to it until AFTER the instructions to install craft.  Whether setting it will be sufficient to proceed I don't know; I'll try as soon as I figure the best way to restart.

In short:
1. Main issue: Add support for VS 2019

Secondary issues:
2. If installation fails, make it clear it has failed.
3. The message "Please ensure that you have installed the C++ component" could be more explicit about what exactly is missing and how it needs to be installed.
4. Instructions at https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Build_from_source/Windows should specify steps in the order in which they are performed, i.e., set env variables before running script.  Better yet, the script could handle this itself, minimally by warning if a needed environment variable is missing and maximally by setting it appropriately.  FWIW, I believe with my current installation C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Preview\VC\Redist\MSVC\14.20.27404 is the right value.  I believe $env:VCTOOLSREDISTDIR= "..." is the right way to set it.


SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows: 10 64 bit; MSVS 2019 Preview

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Note the installer did find the Python3.7 that was installed as part of VS.

I was doing this to build kdiff3.