[Qt-creator] Kits in QtCreator 2.6

[tobias.hunger at nokia.com]

Hi Diego!

Thanks for your feedback!

> * I understand the need for this, but IMHO... way too complicated. Or
> lack of defaults.

The idea is that the installer will be able to handle the complexity of
setting up at least basic Kits.

The desktop kit should also have sane defaults for those that do not
require an installer. It currently tries to pick up a Qt version/compiler/
debugger/etc. from PATH.

> * From now on, you need to specify the full path for cmake on linux. WHY?

That is unrelated to Kits.

> * When adding a new kit, the first step is adding a compiler. When
> adding a new compiler, the GUI is smart enough to fill in the arch
> details when you choose a full path... but IMHO you can even guess the
> full path in Linux (on windows you might have some other defaults like
> c:\mingw\bin, and %PROGRAMFILES%\intel\icc\whatever).

On linux it should pick up compilers in PATH. It will also auto-detect MSVC
on windows and does some limited probing for mingw. We do not support
icc on windows AFAIK.

The compiler detection is exactly (minus some fixes here and there) what we
did in earlier versions.

> * The next step in choosing a kit is to choose a Qt version. Again on
> unix, this can  be guessed.

Again the qmake in PATH should have been picked up. That should cover most
linux users. Windows users are most often out of luck here.

Again this is basically exactly what we did before.

> * The next step is to choose a "kit" - a combination of compiler+qt.
> Nice touch, again complicated, but nice.

If there is no kit defined at all then it should have set up a desktop
kit for you, filling in a Qt version and matching tool chain for you.

Looks like the detection of those failed for you, so you were out of luck.

> * My problem with this workflow is that I needed to go from the
> rightmost tab (the compiler), press "apply" and only then move a tab
> to the next left tab. "It was hard to get for a minute, why everything
> is ok... but I still cannot compile...?"

Yes, we can improve on the need to apply. In some places you even need to
close the options dialog for settings to stick, we definitely need to fix
this for the RC.

I think having the kits as the most prominent tab in "Build & Run" is fine though:
They are the most important thing...

> * A reset button for this whole thing would be nice: delete
> everything, and detect whatever is possible.

I really do not like purging the complete configuration by pressing on single
button somewhere:-)

Adding a kit should get you something close to the desktop kit we set up
by default... so if you have a tool chain and Qt version set up that should work.

> * You still default to build using a single process. IMHO you can
> detect the number of processors and execute add "-j $CPU" to the make
> command arguments.

Using parellel build or not is something a developer should decide IMHO. There
are enough build systems out there that can not cope with that (getting fewer thanks
to multi-core systems:-).

If you want to always build using several processes just set the MAKEFLAGS environment
variable up properly. 



I would really like to know which tool chains/Qt versions were auto-detected on
your system and why auto-detection seems to have failed for you. Any ideas?

Did the compiler auto-detection work for you?

Best Regards,
Tobias

Tobias Hunger
Software Engineer
Nokia, Qt Development Frameworks

Nokia gate5 GmbH
Firmensitz: Invalidenstr. 117, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Registergericht: Amtsgericht Charlottenburg, Berlin: HRB 106443 B
Umsatzsteueridentifikationsnummer: DE 812 845 193
Geschäftsführer: Dr. Michael Halbherr, Karim Tähtivuori
________________________________________
Von: qt-creator-bounces+tobias.hunger=nokia.com at qt-project.org [qt-creator-bounces+tobias.hunger=nokia.com at qt-project.org]" im Auftrag von "ext Diego Iastrubni [diegoiast at gmail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 11. September 2012 17:30
An: qt-creator at qt-project.org
Betreff: [Qt-creator] Kits in QtCreator 2.6

Hi List,

I just updated my local build of QtCreator and found that the build
process has been split into "kits". My random thoughts:

* I understand the need for this, but IMHO... way too complicated. Or
lack of defaults.
* From now on, you need to specify the full path for cmake on linux. WHY?
* When adding a new kit, the first step is adding a compiler. When
adding a new compiler, the GUI is smart enough to fill in the arch
details when you choose a full path... but IMHO you can even guess the
full path in Linux (on windows you might have some other defaults like
c:\mingw\bin, and %PROGRAMFILES%\intel\icc\whatever).
* The next step in choosing a kit is to choose a Qt version. Again on
unix, this can  be guessed.
* The next step is to choose a "kit" - a combination of compiler+qt.
Nice touch, again complicated, but nice.
* My problem with this workflow is that I needed to go from the
rightmost tab (the compiler), press "apply" and only then move a tab
to the next left tab. "It was hard to get for a minute, why everything
is ok... but I still cannot compile...?"
* A reset button for this whole thing would be nice: delete
everything, and detect whatever is possible.
* You still default to build using a single process. IMHO you can
detect the number of processors and execute add "-j $CPU" to the make
command arguments.

Just my thoughts in these 5 minutes of usage. Looks interesting, I
will be smarter after a week of use.

- diego
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