How to compile Notepad++ for yourself
Before submitting a PR for your super-duper-new-feature or your ultra-import-bug-fix, you will need to compile Notepad++ yourself before submitting the PR, to make sure it works.
This page gives suggestions and hints as to how to make the compiling process go smoothly for you.
Visual Studio
Notepad++ has been developed in the Visual Studio environment, so compiling in a recent Visual Studio setup should be straightforward: open the project, and build.
The Community Forum discussion "Building Notepad++ with Visual Studio 2015/2017" has useful information on building Notepad++, especially if you want to include a custom version of the Boost library or do other non-standard builds. (Its original focus was on updating the build scripts from VS2013 to VS2015/2017, but it has applicability beyond that.)
GCC / MinGW
If you are making a debug build binary using MinGW, please do not include paths with fancy Unicode characters (like Japanese or Chinese characters), otherwise Plugins Admin will not work right, as per the "Test GCC Debug Mode" issue.