openvr VS OpenXR-Toolkit

I have been using C++ for a while but never really touched on using a full on SDK and now I want to use this SDK from Valve but my issue is that it isn't clear to me how to use it. What I mean by this is that it comes with a lot of subdirectories and extra stuff but how can I make a hello world program and able to call functions from the header file included in this SDK? I have used .h files before so I understand how the linker and all that works but with such a robust SDK I am not getting how this works on VSCode or maybe that I shouldn't even be using VSCode?

1) I considered switching a while back, but I was already really far in by the time I realized that OpenVR was outdated. If you search for SteamVR, OpenVR comes up as the API to use, and the github site does not mention it being deprecated anywhere. It's generally not obvious unless you are specifically searching for confirmation of obsolescence. In any case, my question is API agnostic.

OpenVR is open to anybody writing a driver to support their equipment there. Anybody can do it. Always has been. Citation, for my point: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr

This is awesome! I requested something similar back in 2019 (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/openvr/issues/1262) but Valve never delivered.

Afaik you only need to have a developer account. It's not official but it's through the OpenXR toolkit. https://github.com/mbucchia/OpenXR-Toolkit

https://github.com/mbucchia/OpenXR-Toolkit/

Right here:) You probably also want OpenXR-toolkit, and maybe OpenComposite to replace SteamVR entirely.

Download and install OpenXR Toolkit from https://github.com/mbucchia/OpenXR-Toolkit/releases. Optional but allows for extra performance tweaking.

WARNING here! You want to have Motion Projection Enabled in both OpenXR AND in ToolKit if you want to avoid a bug, I posted on the official OpenXR Toolkit github. IF you are a motion reprojection user, and you don't have these both enabled, it will "stealth disable" your motion reprojection completely if you ever exit VR and re-enter VR (using CTRL-TAB) without closing down MSFS and starting it up again.

On Gitlab, the VRNeckSafer developer stated that he uses a function to perform the rotation that's not currently available for use in OpenXR...he hopes that it will be added to the OpenXR Toolkit at some point, but while they will consider it it's low on their priority list.

You can override the behavior of the OpenXR runtime to make it use your own controller inputs via an API Layers. This is something that my OpenXR Toolkit project does, where I translate input from a Leap Motion hand tracking device into simulated VR controller inputs.