CMake Editors Support

CMake Editor Modes

There are CMake syntax highlighting and indentation supports for many editors:

• Eclipse There are two plugins for Eclipse:
  • The CMakeEd plugin for Eclipse provides syntax coloring and content assist for editing CMakeLists.txt and any file ending in a .cmake extension. It also integrates the CMake command reference documentation into the Eclipse Help system. This plugin does NOT do project management for you or generate CMake files for you. You are still responsible for this part. CMakeEd just makes writing the CMakeLists.txt files easier.
  • The CMakeBuilder plugin provides a user friendly interface to easily manage CMake-based projects, with the following features: advanced parser, Advanced CMake outline, CMakeBuilder perspective, symbol table and environment inspector, CMake files editor with syntax highlighting, code assist, wizard-oriented project management, Project Nature CMakeBuilder for CDT projects, and incremental project builders.

• KDevelop 4 supports CMake-based projects natively.

• QtCreator supports CMake-based projects natively.

• NetBeans supports CMake-based projects natively since version 6.8.

• Emacs combined syntax highlighting and indentation mode. The file in the repository used to not function properly when running fill-paragraph (M-q). There was a patched version to fix this, but it is largely unnecessary now that the one in the repository works properly now. To enable it, add the following to your .emacs file:

; Add cmake listfile names to the mode list.
(setq auto-mode-alist
	  (append
	   '(("CMakeLists\\.txt\\'" . cmake-mode))
	   '(("\\.cmake\\'" . cmake-mode))
	   auto-mode-alist))

(autoload 'cmake-mode "~/CMake/Docs/cmake-mode.el" t)

I've been long irritated with having to deal with multiple buffers all name CMakeLists.txt. Emacs by default will call them CMakeLists.txt, CMakeLists.txt<2>, CMakeLists.txt<3>, etc.. This is really hard to switch back and forth when the buffer names are difficult to associate with location.

I've found a couple of solutions to this problem.

1. Use uniquify emacs package. This gives several options to automatically rename buffers based on their location on disk.

   ;; uniquify.el is a helper routine to help give buffer names a better unique name.
   (when (load "uniquify" 'NOERROR)
     (require 'uniquify)
     (setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'forward)
     ;(setq uniquify-buffer-name-style 'post-forward)
     )
   

2. Rename the buffer as part of the cmake-mode

   (defun cmake-rename-buffer ()
     "Renames a CMakeLists.txt buffer to cmake-<directory name>."
     (interactive)
     ;(print (concat "buffer-filename = " (buffer-file-name)))
     ;(print (concat "buffer-name     = " (buffer-name)))
     (when (and (buffer-file-name) (string-match "CMakeLists.txt" (buffer-name)))
         ;(setq file-name (file-name-nondirectory (buffer-file-name)))
         (setq parent-dir (file-name-nondirectory (directory-file-name (file-name-directory (buffer-file-name)))))
         ;(print (concat "parent-dir = " parent-dir))
         (setq new-buffer-name (concat "cmake-" parent-dir))
         ;(print (concat "new-buffer-name= " new-buffer-name))
         (rename-buffer new-buffer-name t)
         )
     )
   
   (add-hook 'cmake-mode-hook (function cmake-rename-buffer))
   

I actually prefer renaming my buffers with my cmake-rename-buffer function, because the buffer names start with a lower case letter. :)

• Enscript syntax highlighting rules. To enable it:
  1. copy cmake.st in the hl/ directory.
  2. add the following in the namerules section of the hl/enscript.st file:

  /CMakeLists\.txt/               cmake;
  /\.cmake.*$/                    cmake;
  /\.ctest.*$/                    cmake;

• Epsilon has a CMake extension that supports syntax highlighting, indentation, and auto-completion of expressions for control statements such as if-else-endif, foreach-endforeach, and while-endwhile.

• Geany added CMake support in version 0.16

• Kate, KWrite, KDevelop and all other KDE applications, which use the kate text-editing component support cmake syntax highlighting since KDE 3.4.

• NEdit syntax highlighting support was added by Philippe Poilbarbe

• Notepad++ added CMake support in version 4.1

• SciTE version 1.73 has CMake support. To enable the feature edit SciTEGlobal.Properties and remove the comment before the CMake lines.

• TextMate is a wonderful text editor for OS X. CMake Bundle. This plugin adds syntax highlighting for CMake files and rudimentary completion for command, properties and cmake variables.

• UltraEdit syntax highlighting word file.

• VIM syntax highlighting and indentation mode. To enable indentation, copy indentation file to your .vim/indent directory, syntax highlighting file to your .vim/syntax directory and add the following to your .vimrc:

:autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.cmake,CMakeLists.txt,*.cmake.in runtime! indent/cmake.vim 
:autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.cmake,CMakeLists.txt,*.cmake.in setf cmake
:autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.ctest,*.ctest.in setf cmake

Creating New Editor Mode

The best way to start is to check the logic in existing ones. Make sure to enable indentation for files that match the following file names:

• CMakeLists.txt
• *.cmake
• *.cmake.in
• *.ctest
• *.ctest.in