adding .a files to project??

[new hope]

So i was following a tutorial to do graphics that was depricated and just ignored having graphics in my game. But then i found an article that talked about SOIL and how it was the new standard (still an old article). I installed soil and extracted all the files however i have the file SOILlib.a instead of SOIL.lib that the nehe article says to add to the project options. And im unsure if i would include it in a similar manner or what. How would i include this so i can use Soil to render my graphics. Its beginning to look like i got a newer version of soil then what was displayed in the tutorial. If thats the case then the functions might be different. But the header files are pretty well commented so i should be able to figure things out.

[naraku9333]

You don't use the .a file directly, the project needs to be built. Under the projects directory there is a code::blocks makefile, a generic makefile, and VC projects.