[Qt-creator] Suggestions for 'new class' dialog

[Kevin André]

On Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 9:43 AM Eike Ziller <Eike.Ziller at qt.io> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 8, 2020, at 00:27, Kevin André <hyperquantum at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Every time I use the dialog for adding a new class, there is still a
> > lot that I need to do manually after the files were generated:
> >
> > 1. Add cpp file and often the header file as well to CMakeLists.txt
>
> Unfortunately automatically adapting CMakeLists.txt files is a bit difficult.

If it is only "a bit" difficult, then it's doable ;-)

> > 2. Add GPL header to each file (copy from another file and update the
> > year if necessary)
>
> In Options > C++ > File Naming (not the best heading), there is “license template” where you can point Qt Creator to a file that should be copied to the top of generated source files. Unfortunately that is not available as a project setting, only globally.

This seems less than ideal. I use the name of my project in the text
of the GPL header, and other (open source) projects that I sometimes
work on do not use the GPL license. So having it as a global setting
would make it impractical to use Qt Creator for more than one project.
I have created QTCREATORBUG-25067 to request a project-specific
setting.

> > 3. Add namespace to each file
>
> You can type MyNameSpace::MyClass for the class name to generate it in a namespace.

Well, since there are multiple suggestions asking for this
functionality that already exists, it may indicate that many users
don't know it's there:
  QTCREATORBUG-937
  QTCREATORBUG-2493
  QTCREATORBUG-18965

An important principle in the design of user interfaces is
discoverability. Anyone looking at the dialog for the first time will
simply think "this dialog is too simplistic to support namespaces". No
one will go read the manual first.

> > 4. Change naming of include guards (add prefix)
> > 5. Remove comment "// MYCLASS_H" at the #endif line
> > 6. Change "signals" to "Q_SIGNALS" in the header file
> > 7. Change "ClassName *parent" to "ClassName* parent" in the
> > constructor (if it inherits QObject)
>
> Hm, not sure, can’t you specify that in C++ > Coding Style ?

I did, but those settings seem to be ignored in this case. So I added
QTCREATORBUG-25065.

> >
> > It would be really useful if these actions could be automated as well.
> >
> > 1. It may be possible to add the new files everywhere its peers are
> > mentioned as well. So add "newclass.cpp" everywhere
> > "existingclass.cpp" occurs and add "newclass.h" everywhere
> > "existingclass.h" is found. The existing class should be a similar
> > class in the same directory.
> >
> > 2. I guess it should be possible to automatically extract the GPL from
> > an existing file, copy it to the new file, find the copyright line and
> > change the year(s) mentioned there to the current year.
> >
> > 3. By looking in the bug database I discovered that the wizard already
> > provides this in a very obscure way. This should be made explicit in
> > the user interface, either by adding a separate "namespace: " field or
> > by a visible note mentioning that the namespace can be specified along
> > the class name.
> >
> > 4. It would be really great if a heuristic could figure out the naming
> > scheme for include guards from existing header files in the same
> > directory.
> >
> > 5. I wouldn't mind the comment so much if I didn't have to fix the
> > name of the include guard several times for each header.
> >
> > 6. Maybe add a code style setting that says "don't use the Qt
> > keywords" and obey that setting.

Added QTCREATORBUG-25064.

> > 7. This can be fixed by taking the code style settings into account
> > when generating the files.
> >
> > Should I add a separate suggestion for each of these to the bug database?
>
> 1+2: No.
> 3: Not sure. What where the arguments against a separate namespace field? I don’t see any issues with adding one.
> 4+5: Yes, though we usually don’t like magic so much, so an explicit setting providing a template would be preferred IMO.

You mean something like this: a project setting "include guard naming"
with a default value like "%HEADERNAMEWITHOUTEXTENSION%_H" that I
could change to "MYPREFIX_%HEADERNAMEWITHOUTEXTENSION%_H"?

> 6: Yes, could be done.
> 7: I see, so we don’t apply the code style after generation? Yes -> bug.