[Vala] [ANNOUNCE] Portable Windows version (MonoDevelop 5.1.4, vala 0.25.1, mingw64 4.9.1)

[Marek Gibek <gibekm gmail com>]

Hi All!

I saw that many Windows users think that Vala is usable only under
Linux. This is of course not true. I think it has enormous
multiplatform potential. For me it lacks OpenGL based, MVVM (like WPF)
mutliplatform UI framework, but that can be done...

To make Vala more popular on Windows platform I created portable
bundle ready to play with the language. It is based on
MonoDevelop/XamarinStudio 5.1.4.

You can download it there:
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https://sites.google.com/site/gibekm/programming/vala/windowsportable

Screenshot:
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https://sites.google.com/site/gibekm/_/rsrc/1406733880544/programming/vala/windowsportable/screenshot.png


My changes:
--------------------------------

There was obsolete MonoDovelop plugin for Vala. I updated it to
version 5. I also rewritten code that handles project references.

It behaves more like in C# and Visual Studio now:
- paths to other projects in solution are now relative (so you can
easily move solution folder)
- output from referenced projects/libraries is copied to application
output folder (it is much easier to deploy final application) -  it
takes this info from .pc files (copy_to_output variable)
- project references are pointing to .mdproj not output binary and are
configuration (release/debug) aware now
- fixed: compiler flags can be specified per configuration now

It lacks code completion and debugger support. This can be added later
(code completion was a part of previous version - the code needs to be
converter to newer one).

I haven't tested it under Linux, but it should be easy to port (if
required) Vala plugin there, too.

Regards,
Marek Gibek