[CMake] good open source IDE

[Mike Jackson]

I use Eclipse with CDT (on OS X) using CMake to generate the  
makefiles. Eclipse does a pretty good job of this. You can specify  
what makefile to use (if you use an "embedded" build directory like I  
suggest in the Wiki), you can specify what style of code formatting  
to use ( or make up your own rules), the new syntax highlighting is  
just awesome (if you like that sort of thing), the indexer (which is  
responsible for the code completion) is orders of magnitude better  
than the previous CDT Version (4.0 version 3.1.2) and Eclipse 3.3  
platform over all is faster than the previous versions:

Note: I have not tried Eclipse with a really large project, something  
like VTK or ParaView or Qt although I have projects that _use_ those  
toolkits and the indexer does not seem to have a problem with them.

CMake/Eclipse Wiki:
http://www.cmake.org/Wiki/CMake_Editors_Support  ( I wrote the short  
tutorial on cmake / eclipse. If there is something that is not clear,  
_please_ ask _before_ giving up)

Eclipse/CDT download:
http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/ 
downloads/release/20070628/eclipse-cpp-europa-win32.zip

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/  ( The main download site ). I am  
not sure about Eclipse on Windows. I think you may have to have MinGW  
already installed.


This project is trying to put together a combined Eclipse/CDT/MinGW/ 
JRE installer for Windows. One of the Lead Developers for the CDT  
project is the lead on this project as well.

http://cdtdoug.blogspot.com/2007/06/introducing-cdt-for-windows.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdt-windows

Hope some of this helps
-- 
Mike Jackson   Senior Research Engineer
Innovative Management & Technology Services


On Jul 1, 2007, at 7:47 PM, Brandon Van Every wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a "good" open source IDE for use with CMake?
> This is for C/C++ development.  "Good" probably means "plays well with
> external Makefiles."  Some other qualifiers and experiences:
>
> - I'm not interested in any flavors of Emacs or Vim.  I've used them,
> a lot.  I just don't like them.  They require lotsa RTFM and poking at
> configuration files.  Setting up a class browsing capability via etags
> is a chore.  I like it when Things Just Work [TM] and that's not
> basically the Emacs / Vim culture.
>
> - I tried SciTE.  Didn't even get to building anything, really.  It
> was doing a bad job indenting my code, and I don't want to deal with
> an IDE that can't do that corrrectly out of the box.  Sure if I futzed
> with some settings and addons, I believe I could make it work
> properly.  I have before, but then I got distracted with other things.
>
> - I just tried Code::Blocks with MinGW.  Using it on its own terms,
> with its own project files, seems like a pretty nice alternative to
> MSVC.  But using external makefiles with CMake really didn't work.
> Seems like Code::Blocks is hardwiring the Debug/whatever
> Release/whatever mentality, and it doesn't play with CMake-generated
> makefile targets.  Judging by their mailing list, the development
> energy goes into the Code::Blocks project files, not makefiles.  I bet
> it wouldn't take much work to properly support Code::Blocks, but
> that's not work I wish to undertake right now.  I could try importing
> a CMake generated Visual Studio file.  It seemed to handle "ordinary"
> MSVC files just fine, but my suspicion is it'll get all the absolute
> paths wrong and otherwise blow up.
>
> - maybe setting up Eclipse is the ticket, based on recent posts, but
> I'm reticent.  Not sure I want to deal with a learning curve there,
> but maybe I should try.
>
> - I'm wondering if there are IDEs in the KDE universe that play well
> with CMake and external makefiles?  Dumping Windows in favor of Linux
> is a viable option, if there's an IDE in KDE-land that's "worth it."
>
> - I just want to code in C++.  I don't want to deal with the quirks of
> IDEs.  Consequently, I've gone back to Visual Studio for now.  But in
> the future, I don't want to keep up with MSVC anymore.  So, I'm
> looking for a Visual Studio replacement, something of similar quality.
> I'd say both Eclipse and Code::Blocks are of that quality, but
> neither work well "off the shelf" with CMake yet.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Brandon Van Every
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