Extending the SandboxApplication class

Once your project has been set up, you need to create three blank files for Premake to discover.

Create the source and header files as follows:

src/my_sandbox/include/MySandbox.h
src/my_sandbox/src/MySandbox.cpp
src/my_sandbox/src/main.cpp

Now, it's time to regenerate the Visual Studio solution by executing vs2008.bat, vs2010.bat, vs2012.bat, or vs2013.bat. When you open the Visual Studio solution, you'll see your brand new My_Sandbox project!

Each of the sandbox demos is set up to extend the base SandboxApplication class and declare where to find the corresponding Lua script files for the executable.

Declaring your MySandbox class follows the same pattern and looks as follows:

MySandbox.h:

#include "demo_framework/include/SandboxApplication.h"

class MySandbox : public SandboxApplication {
public:
    MySandbox(void);

    virtual ~MySandbox(void);

    virtual void Initialize();
};

Inheriting from SandboxApplication gives you a base to start with. For now, we're only going to override the default behavior of Initialize in order to add the resource location for our Lua scripts.

Tip

Inheriting from the SandboxApplication class also allows you to override other functions such as Update and Cleanup. Any special C++ code can be injected into the main application through these function hooks.

You should always call the SandboxApplication class' original implementation of these functions if you override them, as they are responsible for cleaning, initializing, and updating the sandbox.

Creating the source file for the sandbox simply sets the resource location to find our sandbox Lua scripts and calls the parent class's initialization function.

MySandbox.cpp:

#include "my_sandbox/include/MySandbox.h"

MySandbox:: MySandbox ()
    : SandboxApplication("My Sandbox") {}

MySandbox::~ MySandbox () {}

void MySandbox::Initialize() {
    SandboxApplication::Initialize();

    // Relative location from the bin/x32/release/ or 
    // bin/x32/debug folders
    AddResourceLocation("../../../src/my_sandbox/script");
}

Finally, you can add the small runner code to kick off your application from main.cpp:

main.cpp:

#include "my_sandbox/include/MySandbox.h"
#include "ogre3d/include/OgreException.h"

#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN
#include "windows.h"

int main() {
    MySandbox application;

    try {
        application.Run();
    }
    catch(Ogre::Exception& error) {
        MessageBox(
            NULL,
            error.getFullDescription().c_str(),
            "An exception has occurred!",
            MB_OK | MB_ICONERROR | MB_TASKMODAL);
    }
}