[Qt-creator] proposals for generic project manager

[Ziller Eike]

On 14.08.2013, at 12:09, Sven Goericke <sven.goericke at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 08/14/2013 11:51 AM, Daniel Teske wrote:
>> On Wednesday 14 Aug 2013 11:46:08 Sven Goericke wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> while implementing at least the "Add New Folder" option in generic
>>> projects (and in turn get an overview how project management works) i
>>> got some ideas for improvements:
>>> 
>>> 1. Instead of maintaing a "<project>.files" list with files belonging to
>>> the project define a set of file-extensions which should be used in the
>>> project. So you no longer need to update the <project>.files outside
>>> Creator but it will pickup all needed files on startup.
>> No, that's in that way by design. Others have written scripts to easily update 
>> the .files file from their real build system. Since Creator watches that file, 
>> the project tree gets automatically updated. That's not possible with globs 
>> without watching the directory tree. (Which is impossible to do.)
>> 
> Well, we use a make-target for that:
> update_qtcreator_files:
> 	$(verbose)find \
> 		$(filter-out ./,$(foreach
> component,$(component_names),$($(component)_dir))) \
> 		$(foreach component,$(component_unittest_names),$($(component)_dir))
> build Makefile version -type f > $(project).files
> 	$(verbose)find . -name '*.[sd]dl' -type f | sed -e 's:\./::g' >>
> $(project).files
> 	$(verbose)find \
> 		$(foreach component,$(component_names),$($(component)_include_dir)) \
> 		$(foreach
> component,$(component_unittest_names),$($(component)_include_dir))
> -maxdepth 0 > $(project).includes
> 
> It works, but i think it's annoying because you have to call "make
> update_qtcreator_files" anywhere outside Creator. If you say there's no
> other way i must accept that. But maybe we could add a menu or at least
> a shortcut and an option where users can specify an arbitary command as
> the "update creator files" command. Meaning one would only need to use a
> shortcut to update the files.

Tools > External (> Configure …) ?

++ Eike

>>> 2. Preprocess-Makros per build-configuration. This should also be
>>> possible. Defining them per build-config would at least help to distinct
>>> between Debug and Release builds (and get the code-model updated per
>>> config).
>> How would the .config file look like then?
>> 
> I would need to figure out that. Because the you can use conditional
> Macros in the .config file (yes i use that for the different target
> platforms i support) maybe one could do something like
> 
> #if defined(QTC_GENERIC_BUILD_CONFIG_NAME)
> #... (user defines here
> #endif
> 
> and add the QTC_GENERIC_BUILD_CONFIG_NAME to the defines for the
> code-model when selecting the configuration in Creator. It's just an
> idea, maybe it has to be done in another way.
> 
>>> 3. Get rid of the default "all" and "clean" targets. Even if they are
>>> widely used those targets are not a requirement in any generic
>>> build-system. Also (as the word "generic" suggests even don't assume
>>> that "make" is used as build-command).
>> Yes, it should be just a command to run, which by default can be make.
>> 
> Defaulting to make would be Ok (i guess most of Creator users depending
> on the generic project manager use it with make)...
> Sven
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-- 
Eike Ziller, Senior Software Engineer - Digia, Qt
 
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