[Qt-creator] [Dev] Qt Creator 4.0 soft-branched

[Hunger Tobias]

Hi Alexander,

On Mo, 2016-02-29 at 18:44 +1000, Alexander Drozdov wrote:
> Improved CMake support? What about scope of this improvements?

4.0 will mostly have workflow improvements for CMake.

There have been no improvements to the parser, etc. that extracts data from
CMake for our code model. Some bugs got fixed along the way. E.g. syntax
highlighting should work a bit better, but nothing major.

>  Currently I
> see, that two of the four features that I support at the
> CMakeProjectManager2 (fork on github) already implemented:
> 1) Handling Kit compiler. But only C++, not C or other. But it simple
> configurable at the Kit configuration page now.

QtCreator does only know one toolchain for each Kit and assumes that to be a C++
one. So there simply is not enough information to set up the C compiler with the
information available. We will need to manage toolchains and programming
languages they support for that and I currently have no plans to go that far,
even though that information is also useful for other build systems.

You can add any cmake settings you need to the Kit's cmake configuration though
and those settings will then be applied automatically everywhere that kit is
used.

> 2) Pointing Build Type to the CMake

That was in 3.6 already if I remember correctly:-)

> Next features I need, but it will be nevenr implement:
> 1) Good management for the CMake toolchain files. Upstream changes so
> fundamental, but I already port this changes to the new codebase. But
> pointing compiler via CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER, not via CXX/CC evn variables
> breaks toolchain files. I solve it via forgoting Kit configuration in case,
> when user select Toolchain file.

I have never used those myself: What exactly do those do? As I understood it,
they are just a bunch of settings that are fed to cmake to pre-fill its cash. Is
that correct?

If that is the case: Can the CMake Configuration in the Kits cover that? Maybe
we could add an "import from toolchain file" to the CMake Configuration dialog?

> 2) Adding files via context menu and show all files in source Tree: it
> allows to add new file to the target directory, see it and after simple add
> to the needed target at the CMakeLists.txt

The only chance I ever see that happening is for cmake-daemon ( https://steveire
.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/cmake-daemon-for-user-tools/ ) to get accepted
upstream.

> New changes, that likes me:
> 1) Integrated CMake dialog to the Project page and transparency CMake
> running.
> 2) Table editor for the CMake options. Small qestion according this
> improvement: will be added some set of known options and ability to select
> it via integrated combo box? will be editor delegates according to the
> option type added, like: if option type is a PATH use File Open dialog?

The editor already uses the type hints to some extend: The bool ones are
tickboxes that tackles between "ON" and "OFF".

A combobox to select between a set of different options is not going to happen,
simply because cmake has no way (that I found) to tell Qt Creator about the
allowed values. Using path-chooser to pick a path/directory is definitely an
option though.

> So, roadmap for the CMake Project Manager plugin is interesting.

My roadmap is simple: Make what is there stable for 4.0.

Next step is to help to polish cmake-daemon up to a state where it can be pushed
for review to the cmake project and use that when/if it makes it upstream. That
changeset is a game-changer (not just for Qt Creator!), but unfortunately my
impression is that the interest from the cmake side is low to non-existent.

Any help with cmake-daemon would be greatly appreciated by Steven, any help with
the cmake plugin is greatly appreciated by me:-)

Finally, please test the 4.0 branch and report bugs, especially if you use CMake
a lot.

Best Regards,
Tobias

-- 
Tobias Hunger, Senior Software Engineer | The Qt Company
The Qt Company GmbH, Rudower Chaussee 13, D-12489 Berlin
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