This is intended as a guide for getting NetGore set up for the first time and assumes that the system NetGore is being installed on has none of the needed third party components required to use NetGore.

Downloads

Please download all of the following items if you do not already have them.

• Visual Studio 2010 Express - IDE used to code C# projects. Skip this if you already have Visual Studio 2010. Any version works, and Professional is optimal, but Express is recommended since it is free. Other IDEs can be used, but no support will be given for them. Visual Studio 2010 can be installed side-by-side with older version of Visual Studio.
• MySQL Community Server 5.1 (or later) - Database used by the server and editors. It is recommended to always use the latest version of MySQL, but older versions may work (no harm in trying!).
• A MySQL GUI such as SQLyog - SQLyog is just one of the many choices of clients for MySQL. If you prefer another client, please feel free to use it instead. This will allow you to easily alter your database.
• The latest version of NetGore
• NUnit - Required to run the unit tests in NetGore, but not required to run NetGore. Still, it is highly recommended.
• .NET 3.5 SP 1 - Note: If you have Visual Studio 2010, you likely already have this! This can be acquired through Windows Update (preferred method) or downloaded directly from the Microsoft site.

Setup

Installing

Install Visual Studio, MySQL Community Server, and the MySQL GUI. The default settings will work fine. Extract the NetGore project download to any directory. The rest of this guide will assume that you extracted the NetGore project to C:\NetGore\.

Loading the solution

After everything is installed, you should be ready to open the solution. Simply double-click the file NetGore.sln. If you extracted to C:\NetGore\, this will be located at C:\NetGore\NetGore.sln. When the solution has been loaded in the IDE for the first time it is recomended that you build the entire solution - this can be done by using the shortcut F6 in Microsoft Visual Studio.

Create the demogame database

To be able to run the demo game that comes with NetGore, you will have to import the database. To do this, open up the MySQL GUI program you downloaded (such as SQLyog, mentioned above) and use it to connect to your local MySQL database. Once you have connected, create a new database and name it demogame. After creating the database, import the database dump file.

Optionally, you may also do this from the command line. To do so, open up a Command Prompt and enter the following commands:

C:\> mysql --user=<USERNAME> --password=<PASSWORD> --host=localhost
mysql> CREATE DATABASE demogame;
mysql> USE demogame
mysql> SOURCE <PATH>

The first line will connect to you to the MySQL database. Be sure to replace and with your actual username and password. The user will likely be root. The second line will create the database. The third will select the database to be used. The fourth and final like will import the database contents from the db.sql file. Be sure to replace with the absolute path to the db.sql file that came with NetGore. If you installed to C:\NetGore\, this file will be located at C:\NetGore\db.sql.

Validate setup

Inside the root directory is a binary InstallationValidator.exe. If you extracted to C:\NetGore\, the file will be at C:\NetGore\InstallationValidator.exe. Run this program to double-check that different components were set up correctly.