[Qt-creator] Request advices for Qt Creator plugin developers to adopt API changes easily

[André Hartmann]

Hi all,

sorry for hijacking this thread, but having a terminal integrated into
Creator sounds like a great addition.

There has been https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTCREATORBUG-8511 plus
duplicates for years, so maybe that is the chance to get that thing in?

Best regards,
André

On 13.02.21 07:52, André Pönitz wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 03, 2021 at 11:04:20PM +0800, Vincent Hui wrote:
>>     Hi Andre',
>
> Hi.
>
>>     Sorry for my late reply.
>>     Now the contributors of ros_qtc_plugin are preparing upstreaming
>>     ros_qtc_plugin to Qt Creator repository.
>>     [1]https://github.com/ros-industrial/ros_qtc_plugin/issues/406#issuecomment-766868092
>>     Would you mind giving them some advices how to upstream ros_qtc_plugin to
>>     Qt Creator repository quickly. I think upstreaming ros_qtc_plugin can
>>     greatly benefit to both of ROS community of Qt community.
>>     br,
>>     Vincent
>
> Sorry, this fell through the cracks.
>
> We had a short chat in the meantime here.
>
> There are currently two possible ways to integrate plugins into Creator,
> first a "full integration" in the Creator core code base, with all the benefits
> and all the restrictions, and second an integration as submodule in the
> super-repo, which currently contains Creator proper as submodule, as well
> as a Haskell support plugin and a plugin for the fossil source control system.
> The super-repo is located at http://code.qt.io/cgit/qt-creator/qtc-super.git/
>
> The long term plan is to move more to the modular (i.e. super-repo) path.
> It also looks like the ros_qtc_plugin seems to have a hard dependency
> on QTerminalWidget which would probably be hard to get into the
> Creator core because that would need the license agreement be accepted
> from the QTerminalWidget folks.
>
> So the suggestion is to choose the second option, i.e. have
> https://code.qt.io/cgit/qt-creator/plugin-ros.git similar to what is there for
> plugin-haskell and plugin-fossil, and link that as submodule from qtc-super.
>
> This would require:
> - someone to request the creation of this repo on the
>    development at qt-project.org<mailto:development at qt-project.org> mailing list
>    and create a corresponding jira task. Anyone could do that, if you don't
>    want to, I'd do it,
> - in that request we need to name someone who will feel responsible for it,
>    suggestion here is that this is you or someone else from the ROS community
>
> The implications of being in the super-repo are:
> - the plugin will get "automatical" updates when internal Creator API changes,
>    so it is kept *compilable*, but final verification of a "working" state will
>    (often) be left to the "responsible person"
> - the plugin will *not* be part of the pre-compiled Qt Creator binaries or the
>    Qt install.
> - there will be pre-build binaries for the plugin created for each Qt Creator
>    release, at https://github.com/qt-creator/plugin-ros/releases/..., which
>    can be used together with the pre-compiled Qt Creator binaries.
> - there would be no hard requirement to stick to Qt Creator coding style rules.
>
> If that sounds ok for you we'd need the name of the "responsible person"
> to request the repo.
>
> If it is not ok for you, we can have a second look on whether integration into
> the Creator core distribution would be possible. That would start with
> clarifying the state of the QTermWidget dependency.
>
> Best regards,
> Andre'
>
>
>>     On Wed, 8 May 2019 at 05:31, André Pönitz <[2]apoenitz at t-online.de> wrote:
>>
>>       On Tue, May 07, 2019 at 04:16:17PM +0800, Vincent Hui wrote:
>>       > Hi,
>>       >
>>       > Thank for developing Qt Creator such a great IDE.
>>       >
>>       > I am a user of ROS Qt Creator Plug-in
>>       > <[3]https://github.com/ros-industrial/ros_qtc_plugin>. After a new
>>       version of
>>       > Qt Creator had been released, it took the developer of ROS plugin a
>>       long
>>       > time to adopt Qt Creator API changes to support a new version of Qt
>>       Creator.
>>       >
>>       > My question is how to let plugin developers to adopt API changes
>>       easily so
>>       > that tey can release newer pulgins quickly ?
>>
>>       The changes are all visible in git, so in principle anyone interested
>>       could
>>       follow up immediately.
>>
>>       However, I see and know that this is quite some effort.
>>
>>       One potential workaround is to develop the plugin in-tree, i.e. submit
>>       it
>>       to the Qt Creator source on [4]codereview.qt-project.org. If it is
>>       accepted
>>       there it will at least get mechanical adapted to API changes. Release
>>       testing and/or feature work will not be covered.
>>
>>       Andre'
>>
>> References
>>
>>     Visible links
>>     1. https://github.com/ros-industrial/ros_qtc_plugin/issues/406#issuecomment-766868092
>>     2. mailto:apoenitz at t-online.de
>>     3. https://github.com/ros-industrial/ros_qtc_plugin
>>     4. http://codereview.qt-project.org/
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