KDevelop User Manual
 

KDevelop User Manual

Bernd Gehrmann <bernd@kdevelop.org>

Caleb Tennis <caleb@aei-tech.com>

Bernd Pol <bernd.pol@online.de>

Revision 3.0.2 (2004-03-04)

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

KDevelop is an Integrated Development Environment to be used for a wide variety of programming tasks.


Table of Contents

1. About this Manual
2. In a Nutshell—Tips and Tricks
3. Development on UNIX
Some Historical Remarks
Contemporary Scripting Languages
Perl
Python
PHP
Higher-level Scripting
The CORBA Protocol
The DCOP Interface
Build Systems
The Make Process
GUI Development
Integrating Concepts and Tools – the IDE
Basic Features of KDevelop 3.0.2
4. Survey of KDevelop Features
Available User Interface Modes
How to Switch User Interface Modes
How to Maximize the Work Space Area
Elements of the User Interface
The Workarea
The KDevelop Titlebar
The KDevelop Statusbar
The menubar
The Toolbars
The Tree Tool Views
The Output Tool Views
Project Management Systems
Automake Projects
QMake Projects
ANT Projects (Java Projects)
Custom Projects
How to Distribute Your Application
5. Installing KDevelop
How to Obtain KDevelop
Get Daily KDevelop Snapshots from CVS
KDevelop Requirements
KDevelop Compilation and Installation
Preliminary Steps
Compile KDevelop
How to Compile on FreeBSD
Some Notes on configure Options
How to Obtain a KDevelop API Documentation
6. Configuring KDevelop
General Configuration
General Setup
Selecting the User Interface
Selecting an Editor
Selecting a Source Format Style
Setting Up the Code Snippets Tool
Configuring the File Selector
Configuring the Documentation
Changing Documentation Entries
Basic Qt and KDE Documentation
Handling Structured Documentation (KDevelopTOC Files)
DevHelp Documentation
Displaying Selected Documentation in a Project
Bookmarked Documentation
Setting Up Text Search Indexes
Advanced Configuration
Plugin Tools
Abbreviations for the Word Completion
Adding KDE Standard Applications to the Tools Menu
Adding External Applications to Menus
7. Getting Started—the Application Wizard
New Projects
Initial Steps
Supply Version System Information
Supply Header/Source Templates
Build the Initial Project Files
Behind the Scenes
Setting Up the Application
Setting Up CVS
8. Advanced Project Management
Loading Projects
Loading a Recently Used Project
Loading an Existing Project
Converting Old KDevelop Project Files
Importing an Existing Project
Tayloring the Project—Project Options
9. Editing Tools
Code Snippets
Keyboard Mapping
The Problem Reporter
Searching and Grepping
Searching for Text
ISearch
Grep
Code Completion
Creating New Files and Classes
Editing the Templates
10. The File Browsers
11. The Class Browsers
Class View
Class Tools
Class Hierarchy
12. Documentation
The Documentation Browser
13. Building and Project Management
Summary of Automake Manager
The Need for an Automated Build System
Tutorials on Autoconf/Automake/Libtool
What does Automake Manager Do?
Summary of What Automake Manager Does
Contents of Automake Files
Automake Manager Operation
The Automake Manager Window
The Overall View Window
The Detail View Window
Navigating in the Automake Manager
Popup Menus in the Automake Manager
Automake Projects
Autoconf
Automake
KDevelop's Automake Manager
Building and Installing Libraries
Custom Makefiles and Build Scripts
Compiler Options
Make Options
14. Advanced Project Management
Multiple Build Configurations
Cross-Compiling
Qt/Embedded
15. The Debugger Interface
Setting Breakpoints
Options
16. Using CVS
CVS Basics
CVS Commands in KDevelop
Behind the Scenes
What CVS Records in the Working Directory
17. Leveraging External Programs
18. Credits
Contributions
A. Menus and Toolbars Survey
B. Shortcut Keys
C. Plugin Tools
Survey
D. KDevelop User Interface Mode Examples
IDEAl Mode
Child Frame Windows Mode
Tabbed Pages Mode
Toplevel Windows Mode
E. Further Information
Getting Information
Reporting Bugs
Licensing
F. Changes
Changes to This Document
G. Bibliography
Index
Chapter 1. About this Manual
 

Chapter 1. About this Manual

This user manual is intended to describe the contents and use of the KDevelop 3.0.2 Integrated Development Environment (IDE) from a user's point of view. It is no programming manual nor does it describe the development process in detail. It's only aim is to guide you in the handling of the IDE.

You will here find information on the following topics:

  • In a Nutshell—Tips and Tricks—a quick reference of the most used commands and actions.

  • Development on UNIX—a historical survey of UNIX program development, the main tools necessary and why you need an IDE.

  • Installing KDevelop—tells you where to obtain KDevelop and how to get it up and running.

  • Survey of the Features of KDevelop—is some kind of a warm-up, giving a short overall view of what is built-in into KDevelop and makes you acquainted with the look and feel of this IDE.

  • Menus and Toolbars Survey—(in the appendix) provides you with a short overall view of the menu and toolbar selections available.

  • Shortcut Keys—(in the appendix) lists the key sequences you may use to quickly access some specific KDevelop operation.

  • Configuring KDevelop—shows how you can taylor the IDE to suit your needs.

  • Getting started: the Application Wizard—describes the basics on how to set up a new project in KDevelop using the built-in Application Wizard.

  • Building and Project Management—shows how to use the Automake Manager to control the Makefile structure of a project.

  • Advanced Project Management—shows how to load existing projects, convert projects from older KDevelop versions, and import other existing projects. Furthermore the configuration of a project's options to suit your needs is discussed.

  • Editing tools—all you need to write your source files: using the editor, searching for text both locally and project-wide, up to integrating new files and classes into the project.

  • The File Browsers—demonstrates various tools to look at the structure of your project and how to access the files you want to work with.

  • The Class Browsers—describes one of the most powerful tools of KDevelop which lets you navigate through class dependencies and allows to easily create and access the classes and methods you need.

  • Documentation—shows how to access the rich built-in documentation KDevelop provides and tells you how to create documentation of your project, concise and powerful API documentation providing you an overall view of all your project sources as well as docbook-based user documentation.

  • Building and Project Management—deals with the creating and management of your project, describing the basics of autoconf and automake as well as how to set up custom make files and how to use compiler or make options to taylor your application to suit your needs.

  • Advanced Project Management—looks at ways to keep multiple build configurations, to cross-compile for diverse platforms, or to make an embedded system using the Qt/embedded library.

  • The Debugger Interface—describes how to use the integrated gdb debugger interface so you can hunt down bugs without leaving KDevelop.

  • Using CVS—tells you how you can maintain your project using the CVS versioning system, a must especially if many developers work at the same project.

  • Leveraging External Programs—shows how to access external programs and tools from within KDevelop thus greatly extending its capabilities.

  • Plugin tools—provides you a survey of the parts which make up KDevelop and how you can taylor it to suit your needs by loading the necessary parts only, both IDE and project-wide.

Chapter 2. In a Nutshell—Tips and Tricks
 

Chapter 2. In a Nutshell—Tips and Tricks

The information in this chapter is meant as a quick reference for a head start or if you (momentarily) forgot about some basic concept. If you want more information on a topic just follow the link in the title starting that advice.

Look and Feel

  • Force Smaller Tool View Tabs in IDEAl Mode.  In more recent versions (most notably from CVS HEAD) KDevelop will start with large text-based tool tip tabs around the work area. You may change this look if you place a MDIStyle entry under the [UI] tag in your &KDEHOME/share/config/kdeveloprc configuration file as follows:

    MDIStyle = 0: icons only
    MDIStyle = 1: text only (default)
    MDIStyle = 2: icons only on smaller tabs
    MDIStyle = 3: icons and text

    (This manual change effort is only preliminary. There will be a GUI configuration possibility some time in the future.)

  • Full Screen Mode Select View->Full-Screen Mode from the menus or press Ctrl-Shift-F.

  • Hide/Unhide the Menubar To hide the menubar select Settings->Show Menubar from the menus or press Ctrl-M. To redisplay the menubar only Ctrl-M is available.

Projects

  • Create New Project Project->New Project... will start the Application Wizard.

  • Create a Custom Project.  There is no direct way to create a custom project (i.e. a project which does use its own makefiles). Use Project->Import Existing Project instead. Remember to set the appropriate Project Type, labeled by an additional “(Custom Makefiles)”, in the dialog.

  • Use Project Options Early Whenever you start a new project do not forget to set the Project->Project Options... to your needs.

Compilation

  • Missing detail in compilation messages If during compilations you miss some valuable information in the Messages Output View window, you may have selected a too low level of messages detail. Right click in the window and select another detail level from the menu which will pop up.

Automake Manager

  • Create New Files in a Project.  Select the subproject in the upper half of the Automake Manager, then right click in the lower half on the groups title you want to have the files added and select Create New File....

  • Add Existing Files to a Project.  Select the subproject in the upper half of the Automake Manager, then right click in the lower half on the groups title you want to have the files added and select Add Existing Files....

  • Remove a File from a Project.  Select the subproject in the upper half of the Automake Manager, then in the lower half open the groups list you want to have the file removed from, right click on the file in this list and select Remove.

Compile/Make Problems

  • “Wrong autoconf version” etc. Error.  There are several error messages concerning too old versions of autoconf etc. prohibiting configure to work properly. Run autoreconf in the directory tree where the configure.in files in question are. This command will try to update the information in the GNU Build System files. See man autoreconf for more information.

Chapter 3. Development on UNIX
 

Chapter 3. Development on UNIX

Bernd Pol

Some Historical Remarks

From the beginning, UNIX has maintained two very different development paradigms. One is the world of system and application programming languages, where some source code is translated to machine code by a translation program, usually a compiler or an interpreter. The programming language C is an example. UNIX was the first operating system kernel to be written in such a high level language instead of tightly machine-oriented assembler which was common before that time. (In fact, the C language once even was invented to write the UNIX kernel and associated programs on a DEC PDP-11 computer.)

The other paradigm is the world of scripting languages. This world evolved with the invention of the UNIX shell which was the user's interface to the operating system—and at the same time a very high level programming language. A shell script is built from a set of small utility programs like e.g. grep, sed, or find. Each such utility is designed for some tightly defined job. The trick is that any such utility can be connected to another one via a simple transport mechanism, called a pipe, which directs the output of the foregoing utility into the input of the next processed one. This makes up for a very powerful and highly flexible programming tool.

As time has gone by, both worlds have evolved. While C is still used mainly as a system programming language, C++ as a variant of C enriched by object-oriented and generic extensions has found its place for the development of complex applications in the 1990's. There are numerous other programming languages, even older ones keep their place—FORTRAN77 and Ada e.g. still have their stronghold in numerical applications.

Contemporary Scripting Languages
 

Contemporary Scripting Languages

In the scripting area, there has been a shift away from the shell, which suffers from portability concerns, to languages which unify all commonly needed functionality in their standard libraries, while still being able to interface to the outside through pipes when necessary.

All these scripting languages have in common that they are widely portable between UNIX variants, Microsoft Windows®, Mac® OS or even VMS. Also, they all have implementations that are freely distributable.

Perl

Perl has become popular as a text processing and system administration language. In the beginning of the World Wide Web, CGI scripts written in Perl were a widely used method to create dynamic web pages from databases. Today, this method has been replaced mostly by the mod_perl plugin for the Apache web server. Among Perl's strengths are its built-in support for advanced regular expression matching and its rich archive of freely distributed modules.

For more information see the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) website.

Python

Python shines by the elegance of its class system and the ease and flexibility with which external libraries can be wrapped in a way that they appear like standard Python classes and functions. In contrast to Perl, Python has a clear and concise embedding API, which makes it the language of choice for making C and C++ programs scriptable.

PHP

PHP was invented as a language directly embeddable into HTML pages and consequently has its main uses in delivering dynamic content in the web.

Higher-level Scripting
 

Higher-level Scripting

Higher-level UNIX applications usually miss the speed and flexibility of the traditional character-oriented shell scripting mechanisms. This is especially true in the world of graphical user interfaces (GUI) as e.g. KDE.

There have been attempts to provide similar mechanisms which will work on a higher application level, most notably CORBA and, in the KDE environment, DCOP.

The CORBA Protocol

CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) is an attempt to let computer applications work together over networks. It was devised by the private, vendor independent OMG (Object Management Group) standards comittee.

CORBA-based programs use the IIOP standard protocol to communicate. Implementations based on IIOP are available on a wide variety of operating systems, programming languages, and networks and are thus highly portable.

The main drawback of CORBA is its rather low speed. While this may be tolerable in networks, it is a real hindrance for inter-application communications in a non-networked environment such as KDE running on a single computer.

The DCOP Interface

Another evolution on UNIX-like scripting is the DCOP protocol which was devised for communication between KDE applications to overcome the limitations of CORBA.

DCOP stands for Desktop Communication Protocol and is implemented as a simple IPC/RPC mechanism built to operate over sockets. In effect this provides facilities similar to the traditional UNIX pipe mechanism.

Traditional shell scripting is based on fairly small tool programs which were designed to work on a strictly textual basis. DCOP allows elaborate graphical programs to communicate with each other in a quite similar way. This enables e.g. a KDE program to send messages to another KDE program, or receive data from it for its own purposes.

There are drawbacks, however. To use DCOP a program must be designed to contain a special DCOP interface. And the DCOP communication process runs somewhat slowly (although a lot faster than CORBA). But it returns much of the power and flexibility of UNIX scripting to high-level programs which are based on a graphical user interface.

For more information, see the DCOP: Desktop COmmunications Protocol paper or The DCOP Desktop Communication Protocol library API reference of the KDE dcop library.

Build Systems
 

Build Systems

Except in very simple cases a programming project will consist of a lot of building blocks of source code each put into a separate file for easier maintenance. To make this running one has to effectively translate all this stuff into a few machine language units in a suiting format which allows the operating system to load and execute the program.

To accomplish this, the basic tools needed are

  • a text editor to write the source code files,

  • a translating program, usually a compiler to turn the source code into object files,

  • a librarian which collects object files into libraries to reuse them easily without the need to recompile,

  • a linker which binds several object files and libraries together into one executable,

  • a make system which provides some means to manage all this stuff and—not to forget

  • a debugger to (hopefully) find all errors in the program and possibly some other diagnosis tools to get everything running smoothly.

When you have a large project consisting of possibly hundreds of source code files, the process of compiling may become quite laborsome. You do not want to recompile all files each time you have changed only some of them. Instead, you only want to compile those files which are affected by the changes. In general, it is not always easily obvious which of the files have to be recompiled.

When you e.g. change a function prototype in a header file, you need to compile every file which includes this header file. If your project contains many such files you may easily miss one or two of them if you have to do the job manually. Thus some means of automization is necessary.

The Make Process

A tool which takes care of recompilations is make. It keeps track of all work using a set of rules which describe what to do in case some piece of information (usually a source or object code file) was changed. All rules belonging to a certain project are stored in a so-called Makefile which is processed by make any time you want to update your work.

Each rule consists of several building blocks, namely

  • a target, i.e. the file to be built

  • a set of dependencies, basically the names of those files the target depends on (e.g. the name of a source file, where then the target will be the name of the object file to be built) and

  • the commands which are to be executed to “make” the target (i.e. to compile it or to link other object files together to build an executable progam file).

Basically the make command will read the rules one after another, check each file in the dependency list of a given target and make this target anew if any one of these files has changed, using the commands listed in that rule.

There are several additional possibilities to control such a make process, and a Makefile can thus grow very complex. We cannot go into the details here. However, we recommend that you make yourself accustomed to the syntax of make. Even if you do not normally use it directly, an understanding of the fundamentals of the build system can be useful. See the “GNU Make Manual” for more information.

For more KDevelop specific detail see the Building and Project Management chapter of this manual.

There are several tutorials available, see the references in the Building and project management chapter.

GUI Development
 

GUI Development

Application developers become even more encumbered by having not only to create program libraries and logic, but also to provide an easy to use custom built user interface that is both intuitive and functional. Most programmers receive little to no training in GUI development, and as a result user interfaces often are poorly designed.

During the years some common design principles have evolved. It is strongly advised to adhere to them. This way your user interfaces will retain a common look and feel that the users of your application will gratefully appreciate.

For KDE GUI development there is a style guide available. It is found in the KDE User Interface Guidelines on the KDE Developer's Corner page.

A short introduction to common GUI design principles can be found here.

Integrating Concepts and Tools – the IDE
 

Integrating Concepts and Tools – the IDE

There are separate tools available for almost any step in the programming process—planning, editing, managing files and compilation processes, debugging, documentation and the like. But once the projects grow the programming processes will most likely become quite cumbersome.

Much repetitive work has to be done when designing, compiling, and debugging a program. A lot of such work can be saved through the use of templates and scripts. And another lot by keeping these tools easily available and able to communicate with each other under a common GUI.

For example—would it not be convenient if a debugger were able to open the source file in question in an editor and place the cursor directly at the position of that bug just found?

To more easily accomplish such a scheme, Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) were devised. Such an IDE integrates all templates, tools, and scripts which are commonly needed in the development process into one single environment.

For the KDE platform KDevelop is such an IDE. It provides a wide range of tools which ease program development and maintenance, even for different programming languages and across platforms.

Basic Features of KDevelop 3.0.2

  • Manages all development tools needed for C++ programming, such as compiler, linker, debugger and build system.

  • Provides an Application Wizard which generates complete, ready-to-go sample applications.

  • Allows the user to select an integrated editor based on the KDE programmer's editor KWrite, Trolltec's QEditor, or others.

  • A class generator, for creating new classes and integrating them into the current project.

  • File management for sources, headers, documentation etc. to be included in the project.

  • Assistance in creating application user manuals written with KDE tools.

  • Automatic HTML-based API-documentation for a project's classes with cross-references to the used libraries.

  • Internationalization support, allowing translators to add their target language to a project easily, including support of KBabel.

  • Support for managing a project via one of several versioning systems (e.g. CVS) by providing an easy-to-use frontend for the most needed functions.

  • An integrated debugger frontend.

  • An integrated shell console emulator.

  • Syntax highlighting in source texts.

  • An auto-code completion facility for class variables, class methods, function arguments and more.

  • Templates for creating various projects (KControl modules, Kicker (panel) applets, KIOSlaves, Konqueror plugins and desktop styles).

  • Four navigation tree views for easily switching between source files, header files, classes and documentation, obviating the need for an external file manager.

  • Cross-compiling support, with the ability to specify different compilers, compiler flags, target architecture, etc.

  • Support for Qt/Embedded projects (such as the Zaurus and iPAQ).

  • Inclusion of any other program you need for development by adding it to the Tools menu according to your individual needs.

Chapter 4. Survey of KDevelop Features
 

Chapter 4. Survey of KDevelop Features

Bernd Pol

KDevelop integrates a lot of tools, scripts, and templates in a common user interface. Basically it consists of

  • several user interface modes from which you can select the look and feel of the workspace,

  • an Application Wizard which aids you in setting up a new project,

  • several project management systems which aid in building and managing your project,

  • some editing tools to easily work on your program texts

  • various file browsers providing you different views on your file system,

  • various class browsers to aid you in maintaining the classes and their relationships of your object-oriented programming project,

  • a debugger interface to find and remove program errors from within KDevelop, and

  • several plugin tools, extensible modules which can be loaded at runtime and on demand. This allows you to only turn on those features you really need.

  • a set of other diagnosis, documentation, and optimization helper tools.

Available User Interface Modes

KDevelop offers developers four separate user interface modes (click on the mode name to view an example):

  • IDEAl

    This is a novel user interface approach optimizing both work space and intuitive handling of the tools.

    • All tool views are docked in a tabbar fashion around the mainframe area. They are grouped left, bottom, and right according to the services provided.

    • Editor and browser views will be stacked in a big sized tabbed window inmidst the mainframe area.

  • Child Frame Windows

    • All tool views are initially docked to the mainframe.

    • Editor and browser views will live like toplevel windows within a view area of the mainframe.

  • Tabbed Pages

    • All tool views are initially docked to the mainframe.

    • Editor and browser views will be stacked in a tabbed window.

  • Toplevel Windows

    • All editor, browser, and tool views will be toplevel windows directly on the desktop.

    • The main widget only contains the menu, toolbars, and statusbar.

How to Switch User Interface Modes

To switch the user interface mode select Settings->Configure KDevelop... from the menus. The Customize KDevelop dialog will pop up, where you have to select User Interface in the left hand tree. This will display the settings page shown below.


Select a user interface mode


Select the radio button of the user interface mode you want to switch to, then press OK.

How to Maximize the Work Space Area

To maximize space, there is a full-screen window mode available which expands the mainframe area to the screen borders. Additional space can be reclaimed by hiding the menubar. And you can of course hide any toolbar as usual in KDE applications.

Full Screen Mode.  To switch to or from full screen mode select View->Full-Screen Mode from the menus or press Ctrl-Shift-F. There is also a Full-Screen Mode icon in the Browse Toolbar available.

Hide/Unhide the Menubar.  To hide the menubar select Settings->Show Menubar from the menus or press Ctrl-M. You may also include a Show Menubar icon in a suiting toolbar, e.g. the Browse Toolbar for that purpose. To unhide the menubar you must press Ctrl-M or use the Show Menubar icon if available.

Elements of the User Interface
 

Elements of the User Interface

(... to be written ...)

The Workarea

(... to be written ...)

The KDevelop Titlebar

(... to be written ...)

The KDevelop Statusbar

(... to be written ...)

The menubar

(... to be written ...)

The Toolbars

(... to be written ...)

The Tree Tool Views

(... to be written ...)

The Output Tool Views

(... to be written ...)

Project Management Systems
 

Project Management Systems

Globally, a project will rely on some form of project management system. KDevelop offers four project management systems the programmer can select from when creating a new project.

Automake Projects

Projects created with KDevelop's Automake Manager make it very easy for developers to use the GNU standard development tools. They provide

  • a better way of Makefile generation and

  • a good and safe way for fast adaption towards different systems by autoconf-generated configure scripts.

QMake Projects

For developers who enjoy the flexibility and feel of Qt™'s qmake system, KDevelop offers the ability to handle qmake based projects (.pro files) within the GUI.

For more information on the QMake project manager see the “qmake User Guide” which should be included in your distribution or have a look at the TROLLTECH Documentation home page where you may find the QMake documentation of your “Qt C++ GUI Application Development Toolkit” version.

ANT Projects (Java™ Projects)

Java™ developers may want to use the Apache ANT project manager for their projects. To set up a new Ant project in KDevelop select Project->New Project...->Java->Ant Project->Application.

For more information see The Apache Ant Project home page.

Custom Projects

If you prefer to maintain your own Makefiles for your project you may use the custom project option of KDevelop. This may be feasible in unusually structured projects or if you want to retain full control over the make process.

Yet, if you do not really need the extra flexibility and control of the custom project manager you should consider Automake Manager or one of the other project managers, because they considerably ease the program building and distribution processes.

How to Distribute Your Application

The distribution of your applications does not require the end-user to have anything different installed other than

  • an appropriate compiler,

  • a linker, and

  • the appropriate development libraries,

which at least for C++ applications is most often the case. But you can as well distribute binary packages of your application. In either way, the end-user of your product does not need KDevelop installed.

For giving away your sources, we advise to include the project file of KDevelop as well. This makes it very easy for other developers—if they use KDevelop—to work with your sources.

For projects where several developers, maybe working on different places, are involved, this should be the case anyway. So you can ensure consistency of the Makefiles to not run into trouble.

Especially on multi language applications, translators won't actually work with the source code, except in cases that require correction for enabling translation support.

Chapter 5. Installing KDevelop
 

Chapter 5. Installing KDevelop

Bernd Pol

In this chapter we will discuss the steps necessary to compile and install the KDevelop IDE:

How to Obtain KDevelop

KDevelop is available in binary form from many different Linux® distributions such as SuSE, RedHat and others. These binaries are packed in some convenient format, mostly RPM, for easy installation. To install, follow the standard instructions given in your distribution.

You may as well obtain the KDevelop sources, compile and install them by yourself. These sources can be found via the project home page at http://www.kdevelop.org or via the KDE ftp site.

Get Daily KDevelop Snapshots from CVS

If you want be in front of current development, anonymous CVS repository snapshots are available. The module name is kdevelop at :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.kde.org:/home/kde.

Initial CVS Checkout

To obtain an initial version of KDevelop you must download it from anonymous CVS. For this so-called checkout operation follow these steps.

Note

We assume you want to put your KDevelop copy into the kde3src subdirectory of your home directory (~).

# Create the destination directory, if necessary:
~> mkdir kde3src
~> cd kde3src
~/kde3src> cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.kde.org:/home/kde co kdevelop
~/kde3src> cd kdevelop

Note

Once you have successfully checked out your KDevelop version, you may keep up with the changes using the update procedure shown in the next section.

Important

Keep the server load low. Please do not checkout every time you want to keep your KDevelop up to date! Use CVS update for this purpose.

Now you may compile your KDevelop version as shown in the KDevelop Compilation and Installation section.

Keeping Your CVS Copy Actual

After you checked out (and successfully compiled) KDevelop from CVS as shown above, you'll want to keep it up to date in order to get all the patches. Follow these steps. (We again assume you have put your KDevelop copy into the kde3src directory.)

Note the up (= update) command instead of the co (which stands for checkout).

~> cd kde3src
~/kde3src> cvs -z3 -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.kde.org:/home/kde up kdevelop
~/kde3src> cd kdevelop

Note

Keep an eye on the messages CVS produces during the update sequence. The exact steps in the compilation sequence depend on this.

Now you can compile a new KDevelop version as shown in the Special CVS compilation considerations chapter.

KDevelop Requirements
 

KDevelop Requirements

In order to successfully compile and use KDevelop, you need the following programs and libraries. They are available on most platforms as distribution packages and thereby can be installed easily.

Required:

Optional:

  • The ctags source navigation tool, from http://ctags.sourceforge.net, which enables you fast access to declarations and definitions by a few simple clicks on a name in the editor.

  • dot, a graphics language compiler, from http:/www.graphviz.org. This tool is needed in conjunction with Doxygen below if you want to have class relationships graphically displayed (which is highly recommended).

  • The Doxygen documentation tool, from http://www.doxygen.org if you want to generate concise and powerful API documentation from your projects.

  • valgrind from http://developer.kde.org/~sewardj/ helps you to find memory management problems in your applications.

  • CVS from http://www.cvshome.org if you want to use the CVS versioning system.

  • Any other compiler and/or tool in case you want to develop for another language/platform than C++/KDE or use some special facility.

Note

  1. You can to a certain extent circumvent the need for autoconf ≥ 2.52 and automake ≥ 1.6. Just remove the admin directory in your KDevelop installation directory and type

    (your-kdevelop-directory)> ln -s $KDEDIR/share/apps/kdelibs/admin admin

    at the console. This causes KDevelop to use the standard settings in the KDE admin directory instead.

  2. Be careful not to mix Qt™ versions. Always link KDevelop to the same Qt™ version your KDE library was compiled. Otherwise you will most likely experience very strange behaviours.

KDevelop Compilation and Installation
 

KDevelop Compilation and Installation

Once all requirements are met, you are ready to compile and install KDevelop. This chapter will discuss the necessary steps to do so.

  • Preliminary Steps tells you about setting up a proper environment.

  • Compile KDevelop deals with obtaining the KDevelop sources from CVS, how to prepare them for the installation process, and finally shows the steps necessary to compile and install KDevelop.

  • How to Compile on FreeBSD discusses special considerations about the Berkeley Database systems in order to compile and install KDevelop.

  • Some Notes on configure Options tells you how to run KDevelop if it has been installed in another location than the KDE directory.

Preliminary Steps

Before entering the compile sequence you must make sure all libraries and tools are available to the make system. To accomplish this some environment variables need to be properly set. The actual steps to be performed depend on the console shell you use.

Note

To avoid typing in all the statements that set the necessary environment variables every time you want to compile, you should put them into your .bashrc or .cshrc file. This way the environment variables will be properly set every time you start the shell.

Setting the Environment for the bash Shell

If you use the bash shell add the following lines:

export KDEDIR=(path to your KDE installation)
export QTDIR=(path to your Qt library)
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib:$KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
export LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib:$KDEDIR/lib:$LIBRARY_PATH
export PATH=$QTDIR/bin:$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH

Setting the Environment for the tcsh Shell

If you use the tcsh shell add the following lines:

setenv KDEDIR (path to your KDE installation)
setenv QTDIR (path to your Qt library)
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$QTDIR/lib:$KDEDIR/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
setenv LIBRARY_PATH $QTDIR/lib:$KDEDIR/lib:$LIBRARY_PATH
setenv PATH $QTDIR/bin:$KDEDIR/bin:$PATH

Compile KDevelop

Note

In the following discussion we assume that you have put your KDevelop sources in the ~/kde3src/kdevelop directory.

Special CVS Compilation Considerations

In case you use a KDevelop snapshot from CVS the initial compilation steps depend on whether you just did a complete checkout or only updated the source.

After a CVS Checkout.  You must initialize the make system after a fresh checkout. The same is true every time you need to start over from scratch. Type:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make -f admin/Makefile.common cvs-clean

and then all of the following steps.

Note

You might need access to the CVS repository for the clean-up if any corrupted or missing files must be reconstructed.

Important

The cvs-clean command will remove every file not in CVS from the directory! Make sure to back up any valuable information before you issue this clean-up command.

After a CVS Update.  The next step depends on the output of the CVS update sequence. If you got something like (there may be a U or a P marker in the leftmost column, both denoting the file has been changed):

U /some_directory_path/Makefile.am

or if you just did a full checkout, you must enter:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make -f Makefile.cvs

before you proceed with all of the following steps.

Basic make Command Sequence

Once the basic make system is set up you must decide which type of the KDevelop system you want to use. This is done in the following configure step which builds the actual Makefiles the make command will use.

Note

You may drop the --prefix option in the following configure command lines if you want KDevelop be installed in the default KDE directory. See the Some notes on configure options chapter for this.

A Debug-Compiled Version.  If you want to keep track of what your KDevelop application does at run-time you may build a debug-compiled version. Just command configure to do so:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> ./configure --enable-debug=full --prefix=(where-your-kde3-is)

A Release-Compiled Version.  If you only want to use KDevelop as-is a (smaller and faster running) release version suffices. configure defaults to this.

~/kde3src/kdevelop> ./configure --prefix=(where-your-kde3-is)

Note

If you want to build your own API documentation for KDevelop you must include yet another option in the configure command:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> ./configure --(options-as-above) \
--with-kdelibsdoxy-dir=$KDEDIR/share/doc/HTML/en/kdelibs-apidocs

Make and Install KDevelop.  configure will check the system and build some Makefiles according to what it found. The make command will use the main Makefile by default. Thus

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make

suffices. If necessary, now gain root user rights using the command

~/kde3src/kdevelop> su

and entering the root password. Then install the application:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make install

That's all. If you installed KDevelop in the default KDE directory you may now run the IDE. Otherwise some additional steps will be necessary as shown in the Non-default installation directory section below.

How to Compile on FreeBSD

If you want compile and install KDevelop on a FreeBSD system follow the normal instructions but after

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make -f Makefile.cvs

you must make the Berkeley specific include files and libraries available to the compiler. This is done through the CXXFLAGS environment variable:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> export CXXFLAGS="-L/usr/X11R6/lib -I/usr/local/include/db41 \
-I/usr/local/include -L/usr/local/lib -I/usr/X11R6/include"

Note

You need the berkeley db 4.1 database version installed, if you have another version, you must adjust the path.

Check the Berkeley Database Version

To find out which berkeley database version you have installed, run:

~> pkg_info | grep db41

This should return something like:

db41-4.1.25_1       The Berkeley DB package, revision 4.1

More Changes

Change the line

ac_cv_bdb=no

to

ac_cv_bdb=yes

in the configure file because otherwise configure can't find the db libraries.

Note

As make -f Makefile.cvs rebuilds the configure file you have to change this ac_cv_bdb entry every time after you issued this command.

As the FreeBSD guys renamed libdb.so to libdbxx.so you must replace

libkdevcatalog_la_LIBADD = -ldb

by

libkdevcatalog_la_LIBADD = -ldb41

in the lib/catalog/Makefile.am file.

Now continue with the usual configure and make steps as shown above.

Some Notes on configure Options

Non-default Installation Directory

By default configure prepares the IDE to be installed in the default KDE directory. This is necessary because KDevelop assumes direct access to some tools and parts which reside there. If want to use your own installation directory, you must tell configure this by the --prefix option:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> ./configure --prefix=(where-your-kde3-is)

There is a caveat if you do so. You must provide a means for KDevelop to access the needed tools and parts in the KDE directory when running. (You can still use the IDE without doing so, but with very restrained capabilities.)

Call up a shell and have the following commands executed before you start KDevelop at the shell prompt.

Note

Take care to use the plural: It is “KDEDIRS”, not just “KDEDIR”)

~> export KDEDIRS=/usr/local/kde:/opt/kde3
~> kbuildsycoca
(Now start KDevelop:)
~> kdevelop

Note

The KDEDIRS environment variable must be set to the list of active KDE directories in your system. We use
/usr/local/kde:/opt/kde3
as an example only.
The /usr/local/kde directory may for instance contain an incomplete KDE version you compiled for debug purposes, and the /opt/kde3 directory may in addition contain the standard KDE version from your distribution that is used for everyday work.

In a tcsh shell you must set the environment variables using:

~> setenv KDEDIRS /usr/local/kde:/opt/kde3

The kbuildsycoca command (“build system control cache”) looks around for libraries and caches their location and version, so that KDevelop can find them. The caveat is that it takes noticeable time—and it has to be run any time you call up the shell to start KDevelop from a non-default directory. You may want to put the above commands into a shell script to reduce the typing effort.

(You could as well put the lines in your .bashrc or .cshrc file, but this is not advisable as kbuildsycoca will then be run any time you call up the shell.)

Note

The kbuildsycoca command does not run from within the root. You must call it from a non-root user. (But is not a very good idea after all to do software development from within the root!)

How to Obtain a KDevelop API Documentation
 

How to Obtain a KDevelop API Documentation

API is the short form of “Application Program Interface”. Actually such an API cotains a series of descriptions (i.e. calling conventions) by which an application program can access the operating system and other services. In our context, however, a broader definition was adopted. The API of a KDE or Qt™ application is an abstract of the classes and methods interfaces, a synopsis to be used like a dictionary to navigate the sources.

There is a version of the most current API available at the KDevelop-Home website. It will be automatically updated every 24 hours so you can keep up.

Alas, this version is best used read-only over the internet. If you do not allways have net access you may as well build your own API documentation from the KDevelop sources. To do so, you must tell the automake system where to find the KDELIBS API in your system. This is accomplished by the special option --with-kdelibsdoxy-dir in the configure command when you prepare to compile the KDevelop sources:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> ./configure --(options-as-usual) \
--with-kdelibsdoxy-dir=$KDEDIR/share/doc/HTML/en/kdelibs-apidocs

(make will replace the global $KDEDIR variable with the actual KDE directory setting recorded therein.) Then issue a make command as usual. After the KDevelop IDE has been built you have the option to build the API as well. For this you must issue

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make apidocs

This will build a Doxyfile in your KDevelop base directory which in turn will be processed by the Doxygen application to build quite a lot of .html API files. When this rather lengthy API building process (may last more than an hour on a slow system) finally comes to an end, you must install the API just like you have to install the KDevelop IDE itself. If necessary obtain superuser rights by

~/kde3src/kdevelop> su

and entering the root password. Then install the API files:

~/kde3src/kdevelop> make install-apidox

Once this is done, make will inform you about the directory where you can finally look at the API documentation's contents. Note this address, you can use it from the Konqueror as well as from inside KDevelop, in case you have set up the KDevelop sources themselves as a project to work on.

Note

You will most probably see a lot of warning and/or error messages during the API build run by Doxygen. Best ignore them, they are of interest to the KDevelop developers only. If the API generation ever comes to a successful end, the .html API files will be useable.

Chapter 6. Configuring KDevelop
 

Chapter 6. Configuring KDevelop

Bernd Pol

KDevelop is a very powerful and flexible IDE which offers many ways to taylor it to your needs. To start configuration select Settings->Configure KDevelop.... This will cause the configuration dialog to pop up consisting of a selection window to the left and the configuration dialog on the right hand side whose contents will vary upon the configuration item you did select.


Select a configuration item


We will discuss these configurations in a different order, split up into the main topics of General Configuration, Configuring the Documentation Tree, and Advanced Configuration which makes for a more intuitive reading.

If you want directly look up a certain configuration item use one of the following links.

General
Plugins
Source Formatter
User Interface
Editor
Abbreviations
Tools Menu
External Tools
Code Snippets
File Selector
Documentation Tree

General Configuration

General configuration concerns the more common tasks of tayloring KDevelop as there are:

General Setup

The General configuration dialog allows you to define some basic KDevelop behaviour which seldom will change in everyday work. This concerns:

  • General project options as

  • Selecting a font for the most commonly used output view windows, namely

  • Some common behaviour concerning the displayed lines in the Messages Output View window, namely

  • The level of detail of messages concerning the compilation process shown in the Messages Output View window.


The general configuration dialog


Load Last Project on Startup.  Mark this checkbox if you want to continue to work with the last project you worked on. This will cause KDevelop to automatically load this project on start-up. It will usually be shown in the state you left work so you can readily proceed.

Default Projects Directory.  By default, KDevelop uses a common parent directory for all new projects. Enter the absolute path of this common directory in the box or select it from your directory structure. KDevelop will place the any new project here as a subdirectory.

Note

You may of course change the directory path of a new project at the time you set it up in the Application Wizard.

Messages Output View Window Font.  To select a font suitable for the Messages Output View window click the Window Font button showing the currently selected font (it says “Luxi Sans” in the above illustration). The KDE standard Select Font dialog will pop up from which you may select the font to be used.

Note

On first start-up, KDevelop initializes this font setting to the standard font for which your KDE user has been configured. This setting is fixed, so if you alter Preferences->Appearances & Themes->Fonts in the Control Center, this will not effect this KDevelop font selection. You will have to explicitely reselect the Messages Output View window font.

Line Wrapping.  By default, KDevelop will wrap long lines around in the Messages Output View window so that valuable information will not be easily overlooked. In some cases this will clutter long message lists. Remove the checkbox mark if you do not want the lines wrap around.

Tip

There is an alternative way to switch the line wrapping. Just right click in the Messages Output View window and mark/unmark the Line Wrapping entry in the menu which will pop up.

Directory Navigation Messages.  The Make tool usually will display messages like “Entering directory”, or “Leaving directory” when it switches the directories it currently works in. As this clutters the messages list in the Messages Output View window, KDevelop suppresses those messages by default. Mark the checkbox if you want to protocol which directories Make worked in.

Note

Changes in this setting effect the processing of new messages only. Old directory navigation messages will be kept visible when you switch this feature off.

Compiler Output.  KDevelop preprocesses the messages the Messages Output View window receives during the build processes in order to filter superfluous information. You can control the level of detail KDevelop will display using the radio buttons in this field.

Very Short

Displays only warnings, errors, and the filenames which are compiled.

Short

Suppresses all compiler flags and formats the output to be more readable.

Full

Displays all output messages unmodified.

Tip

There is an alternative way to switch the compiler output detail. Just right click in the Messages Output View window and select the according detail level from the popup menu.

Application Output View Window Font.  The Application Output View window is used to display error and state information from applications which are run from inside KDevelop. These are informations the applications usually sends to the console when run stand-alone. So you do not need to leave the IDE when testing the application you currently work on.

To select a font suitable for the Application Output View window click the Window Font button showing the currently selected font (it says “Luxi Sans” in the above illustration). The KDE standard Select Font dialog will pop up from which you may select the font to be used.

Note

On first start-up, KDevelop initializes this font setting to the standard font for which your KDE user has been configured. This setting is fixed, so if you alter Preferences->Appearances & Themes->Fonts in the Control Center, this will not effect this KDevelop font selection. You will have to explicitely reselect the Application Output View window font.

Selecting the User Interface

As already said in the Available User Interface Modes chapter there are four different ways the KDevelop work area may be set up, namely:

To switch the user interface mode select Settings->Configure KDevelop... from the menus. The Customize KDevelop dialog will pop up, where you have to select User Interface in the left hand tree. This will display the followig settings dialog to the right.


Select a user interface mode


Select the radio button of the user interface mode you want to switch to, then click OK.

Selecting an Editor

KDevelop allows you to select your favorite text editor tool. Mark the Editor entry in the left hand side selections tree of the Configure KDevelop window. The following dialog will be displayed to the right.


Select an editor


To select a new editor, click on the arrow on the drop down list field. Depending on the editor parts interfaces your KDE version has compiled in you will be provided with a list of editors you may select from (see the Important note below for this). Click on the editor of your liking and click OK. Currently there are tree possibilities:

Embedded Advanced Text Editor

This is the KDE standard Kate editor part.

Embedded Vim Component

This provides the look and feel of the base Linux vi editor.

Note

  • You need to have a suitable Vim application installed. Have a look at the KVim website for more information.

  • Furthermore you need to configure the KParts Vim component in the KDE Control Center (KDE Components->Vim Component Configuration) before you can use it.

Qt Designer Based Text Editor

This is the editor Qt provides in its Designer component.

These editor interfaces are fully integrated in the KDevelop IDE concept. Particularly the possibility to jump to the offending source code line by just clicking on an error message in the Messages Output View window has been provided.

Note

Changing the editor will not effect already open files. There are two possibilities to proceed. Either close all open text windows and reopen them one by one. Or simply close the whole project and reopen it again. The windows will then automatically open under the new text editor interface.

Important

KDevelop lets you use editor interfaces which have registered with KDE and that provide a KatePart interface. If you miss one one of the selections shown above check your KDE installation if the corresponding KPart was correctly installed.

Selecting a Source Format Style

KDevelop automatically formats a source text in a predefined style. This style is highly configurable. Select Settings->Configure KDevelop... from the menubar. The Customize KDevelop dialog will pop up, where you have to select Source Formatter in the left hand tree. This will display a series of three settings dialog tabs to the right, namely a General Formatting Setup, a Indentation Style Setup, and a Other Formatting Setup.

Tip

Any style changes apply to newly entered text only. If you want to change the formatting style of an already existing source text you will have to explicitely use the Edit->Reformat Source command.

Note

The exact outcome of these style formatting definitions depends on the editor you use. Currently, most settings are taylored to the Kate editor part (the “Embedded Advanced Text Editor”). Some other editors (e.g. the Qt editor) may rely on their own configuration settings. You will have to experiment in this case to find out the exact effects of the style settings provided here.

Warning

Tere may be incompatibilities between the configuration style settings provided here and the editor you use up to the extent that in extreme cases it even might destroy your files. Make sure you have a backup of your source files before you try out these settings with an none KDE standard editor.

General Formatting Setup

The General tab of the Source Formatter dialog allows you to select one out of five predefined source format styles.


Source format style general setup


A formatted source example will be displayed in the field to the right. If none of the predefined styles is to your liking, you may click the top User defined radio button and define your own source formatting style preferences on the other two tabs which will become available then.

Note

Currently only the predefined source formatting styles will be demonstrated by an example text. If you decide to define your own style, no example display will be available. You have to experiment on an actual source text to taylor the settings to your liking.

Indentation Style Setup

Proper indentation is the main means to enhance readability of a source text. I you selected the Indentation tab of the Source Formatter dialog you will be presented with a series of indentation formatting choices grouped into three boxes as following.


Source format indentation style setup


Default Settings.  The preset format choices will cause the source text to resemble the ANSI formatting style:

namespace foospace
{
  int Foo()
  {
    if (isBar)
    {
      bar();
      return 1;
    }
    else
      return 0;
  }
}

Defining Indentation Width and Characters.  The radio buttons grouped in the Filling group define how indents in the source text will be drawn.

Use tabs

This will cause the editor to insert a tab character for each indentation level. The tab width is predefined in the editor settings (8 or 4 character columns usually). Use Settings->Configure Editor... to redefine it.

Note

The actual tab width definition procedure depends on the editor you selected in the Selecting an Editor configuration step. You will have to look up the corresponding editor help to find out.

Use spaces

If you select this radio button, the editor will enter a number of spaces for each indentation level. Change the number from the default 2 to the indentation width you prefer.

Indented Entities.  This defines which of the (C/C++) entities will be formatted with an extra indent beyond the current indentation level.

By default only namespaces and labels will be extra indented. You may want to experiment with various settings to taylor those extra indents to your liking.

Continuation.  The settings grouped here apply to those cases where the source formatter automatically wraps around long source lines. It takes two special cases in account, namely that in deeply nested indents there should remain enough room for the source and that conditionals should get extra indent levels on continuation to make them stand out properly.

Note

This applies to static word wrap cases only where a fixed maximum line width is used in the source text. If you set up your editor to dynamically wrap around long lines in display only (which is possible in the Kate editor part) the effects of these settings usually will not show.

Maximum in statement

This setting limits the maximum possible indentation for the continuation lines so that enough space will remain to keep the text readable. No continuation line will ever be indented beyond the number of columns you selected in this field.

The default is set to 40 character columns (half a standard 80 column page). You may want to increase this value to account for wider paper (e.g if you use landscape printing for your sources). Or decrease the value accordingly to take larger margin settings of your printouts into account.

Minimum in conditional

Conditionals or source following e.g. an assignment operator should usually get an extra indent on continuation lines in order to keep the text readable. The amount of this extra indent is defined here.

The default is set to “Twice current” which means that continued conditionals will get an extra indent level of the standard indentation size you selected in the Filling group. You may change this extra indent to another fixed width (including zero) using the arrows or by entering the value directly.

Other Formatting Setup


Other source format style settings


Controlling the Position of Braces.  The radio buttons the (somewhat misnamed) Brackets group control the position of block delimiting braces in a (C/C++) source text. There are three possibilities from which you can select.

Break

This inserts a line break before each opening brace. Both delimiting braces of any block will be put at the same indentation level as the block head statement.

namespace foospace
{
  int Foo()
  {
    if (isBar)
    {
      bar();
      return 1;
    }
    else
      return 0;
  }
}
    
Attach

This will keep the opening brace of a block in line with the block head statement. Closing braces will be on the same indentation level as the block head statement. The else of an if statement will be kept in line with the closing brace of the preceding block.

namespace foospace {
  int Foo() {
    if (isBar) {
      bar();
      return 1;
    } else
      return 0;
  }
}
    
Linux Style

This is a compromise of the above listed styles. Functional block delimiting braces will be put on extra lines. Braces opening a block in a conditional or loop statement will be kept in line.

namespace foospace
{
  int Foo()
  {
    if (isBar) {
      bar();
      return 1;
    } else
      return 0;
  }
}
    

Controlling Extra Spaces.  By default KDevelop does minimize the use of spaces in source texts.

if (isBar(fooArg)==barValue)

You may enhance readability if you force the source formatter to insert extra spaces in special positions.

Add spaces around parentheses

In fact what is meant is to add spaces around the text put in parentheses. This enhances the readbilitiy of function arguments and conditionals.

if ( isBar( fooArg )==barValue )
    
Add spaces around operators

This will put spaces around assignment and comparison operators to enhance the readability.

if (isBar(fooArg) == barValue)
    

Controlling the Formatting of One-Line Constructs.  There are a few cases where you don't want the source formatter to split a long line apart. For C/C++ code this can be controlled here.

Keep one-line statements

This keeps single line statements together in some situations even if they exceed a fixed maximum line length.

Keep one-line blocks

This keeps single line blocks together in some situations even if they exceed a fixed maximum line length.

Setting Up the Code Snippets Tool

When editing in KDevelop you can store often used parts of code as Code Snippets. To configure the capabilities of the code snippets part select Settings->Configure KDevelop... from the menubar. The Customize KDevelop dialog will pop up, where you have to select Code Snippets in the left hand tree. This will show the following dialog in the right hand side.


Configuring the Code Snippets tool


Activate Snippet Preview.  Mark the “Show snippet's text in tooltip” checkbox if you want to view the stored text in a tooltip window whenever you keep the mouse cursor over the title of that snippet.

Working With Snippet Variables.  The Code Snippets tool allows for a variable text in predefined places any time you insert a snippet into a file. To accomplish this Code Snippets provides its own variables' mechanism. You can set up it's behaviour in the Variables group.

Delimiter

The Code Snippets tool distinguishes variables in the text by surrounding the variable name with special delimiter symbols. To use your own delimiter symbol, change the predefined $ character in the Delimiter field.

Input method for variables
  • Single dialog for each variable within a snippet – will in turn pop up a separate dialog for each variable which the tool finds when inserting the selected code snippet.

  • One dialog for all variables within a snippet – will pop up a common dialog where the user has to fill in the values of all variables before the snippet will be inserted

Configuring the File Selector

KDevelop provides a File Selector plugin which, when loaded at start-up, allows to navigate to any file or directory in the system.


The file selector (IDEAl mode)


The behaviour of the File Selector can be highly configured. Select Settings->Configure KDevelop... from the menubar. The Customize KDevelop dialog will pop up, where you have to select File Selector in the left hand tree. This will show the following dialog in the right hand side.


Configuring the file selector


Configuring the Toolbar.  There is a toolbar on top of the File Selector which can be configured as usual in the Toolbar group.

Procedure 6.1. Add an Action to the Toolbar

  1. Select an item in the right hand Selected actions list after which the new action should be inserted.

  2. Select the action to be inserted in the left hand Available actions list.

  3. Click the right (upper) arrow between both lists.

    The action will be removed from the Available actions list and inserted into the Selected actions list below the selected item.

Procedure 6.2. Remove an Action from the Toolbar

  1. Select the item to be removed in the right hand Selected actions list.

  2. Click the left (lower) arrow between both lists.

    The selected item will be removed from the Selected actions list and put back into the Available actions list.

Procedure 6.3. Reorder the Actions on the Toolbar

  1. Select the action to be moved in the right hand Selected actions list.

  2. Click the up or down arrow to the right of this list.

    The selected item will be moved up or down the Selected actions list.

Defining When the Contents Should Change.  Updating the contents in the File Selector window takes time and resources, esp. when changing to another directory. Therefore File Selector is set up by default in such a way that its contents change only on demand, i.e. when you select another directory or when you explicitely want to refresh its contents.

Note

Click the Reload button in the toolbar to update the contents of the File Selector. This toolbar button is not availble by default, however. You must insert it there first.

You can configure the File Selector to immediately reflect certain changes in your work. The settings in the Auto Synchronization group of the configuration dialog are responsible for this.

When a document becomes active

If you select this checkbox, the contents in the File Selector window will be updated whenever you go to another already open document, e.g. when you click on the tab of the according edit window in IDEAl mode. If necessary the File Selector will switch to the directory this file belongs to and update the display to show the actual contents in there.

When a document is opened

If you select this checkbox, the contents in the File Selector window will be updated whenever a document will be opened, e.g. by the File->Open menu. If necessary the File Selector will switch to the directory this file belongs to and update the display to show the actual contents in there.

When the file selector becomes visible

If you select this checkbox, the contents in the File Selector window will be updated whenever it gets visible again. If necessary it will switch to the directory the actual document belongs to and update the display to show the actual contents in there.

You may freely combine these settings to taylor the actualization behaviour of the File Selector to your liking.

Controlling the History in the Comboboxes.  There are two comboboxes on top and bottom of the File Selector contents window which control the directory to be diplayed (top combobox) and the filters to be applied to the file display (bottom combobox). A history of the most recent settings is kept in the selection field of each combobox. You can configure the number of history entries as follows.

Remember locations

Enter here the maximum number of directory selections the upper combobox shall remember.

Remember filters

Enter here the maximum number of filter definitions the lower combobox shall remember.

Controlling What Should be Remembered Between Sessions.  By default the File Selector is set up so that it shows the display of the most recent session again at the next KDevelop start-up. You may change this behaviour in the Session configuration group.

Note

If KDevelop was automatically restarted by the KDE session manager the changes in these settings will have no effect. In this case location and filter settings of the most recent KDE session will always be restored.

Restore location

Remove the checkbox mark here if you don't want the displayed location be remembered between sessions.

Note

If you selected one of the automatic update settings the displayed location might automatically change regardless what has been remembered from the recent session.

Restore filters

Remove the checkbox mark here if you don't want the filters applied to the display be remembered between sessions.

Configuring the Documentation
 

Configuring the Documentation

KDevelop contains a very powerful documentation facility which provides access to several kinds of extensive documentation. In e.g. IDEAl mode you find a Documentation tab at the right border of the work area.


The KDevelop documentation tree (IDEAl mode)


You may set up the contents of this documentation tree if you select Settings->Configure KDevelop... from the menubar. The Customize KDevelop dialog will pop up, where you have to select Documentation Tree in the left hand tree.

Note

KDevelop must have loaded the Documentation plugin in order to view the documentation tree. See the Plugin Tools section for more info.

Alternative Method to Call Up the Configuration Page.  There is a shortcut way to call up this configuration. Open the documentation tree (e.g. by clicking on the Documentation tab in IDEAl mode), then right-click into the list. From the popup dialog select Properties which in turn will display a Customize Documentation Tree window.

The thus displayed configuration page shows a series of tabbed configuration dialog pages, namely:

General
Full Text Search
Bookmarks
KDevelopTOC Documentation
DevHelp Documentation

Additionally you have the option to select what the documentatione tree should display as

Project Documentation

on a per project basis.

For a more intuitive reading we will discuss these configuration dialogs in slightly different order. Use one of the links above if you want to directly look at the help for one of the tabbed configure dialog sections.

Tip

You should at least configure the Full Text Search section. It is mandatory to immediately access the Qt™ and KDE Libraries API help from within a source text.

Changing Documentation Entries

Most of these tabbed configuration dialogs provide a set of Add, Edit, and Remove buttons to the right of some list field. Use these to change the listed entries or add your own.

If you click one of the Add or Edit buttons you will be shown an Add Documentation Entry dialog like this (deliberately filled in by an example):


Adding or changing a documentation entry


Local and Remote Documentation.  The KDevelop documentation tree may access local (system internal) documentation files as well as remote (external, mostly accessible via the web) ones. You only need to enter the proper URL addresses in the Location field. (In fact, most predefined entries in the documentation tree at initial KDevelop start-up consist of links to external documention.)

You may at any time change from remote to local documentation (if you e.g. downloaded the files into your system) and vice versa. Just alter the URL accordingly as shown below.

Note

Don't forget to provide working net access before you select one of the external documentation entries in the KDevelop documentation tree.

Documentation List Change Buttons

Add

When you click this button you will be presented with an empty Add Documentation Entry dialog.

Enter a suitable Title text and the URL address where the documentation will be found in the Location field.

If you don't know the exact address (or rather want not type) click the folder-labeled button to the right of the Location field. The usual file selection dialog will then pop up where you can navigate to the file you want to be added.

Edit

First select the entry you want to change in the list field, then click the Edit button. The Add Documentation Entry dialog will then pop up with its fields preset with informations from the selected list item (see the example above where the fields are filled in for the KDE Libraries documentation).

Enter a more suitable Title text and/or change the URL address in the Location field to the location where this documentation will be found in your system.

If you don't know the exact address (or rather want not type) click the folder-labeled button to the right of the Location field. The usual file selection dialog will then pop up where you can navigate to the file you want to be added.

Remove

First select the entry you want to remove in the list field, then click the Remove button. This will delete the selected documentation from the stored entries.

Warning

Think twice before you remove a documentation form the list!

There is usually no easy way to undo this operation. In most cases you will have to add the documentation manually again. So, if you are unsure, try to backup the configuration files (if known) or at least note URL and title of the selected documentation before you click Remove.

Predefined File Selections.  In some cases when you called the file selection dialog from Add Documentation Entry you may find the display of available files limited by a preset Filter field (located at the dialog bottom). This may e.g. read “*.xml *.dcf” in the case of changing the Qt™ documentation files. If you are unsure about the files you need, best stick to such predefined selections.

Basic Qt™ and KDE Documentation

The General tab of the Documentation Tree configuration page contains information to access the basic documentation sets needed for KDE programming. Accordingly there are three dialog groups:

Qt documentation collections
Documentation generated by Doxygen
Documentation generated by KDoc


Setting up KDE basic documentation sets


Qt Documentation Collections

Normally KDevelop will fill this in on its first start-up. It looks for standard documentation files in the Qt™ installation directory. The table to the left lists the files KDevelop found by their standard title and URL address.

If you have a non-standard installation, either there will be no information listed at all or the addresses will possibly point to improper locations (e.g. to another Qt™ installation available in your system). You may adjust the entries using the buttons to the right of the list field.

Note

Pressing the Add or Edit to change a Qt™ list entry will pop up a slightly different dialog:


Adding or changing a Qt™ documentation entry


Normally KDevelop will use the titles already provided by the installed Qt™ documentation. Hence the Title field will be grayed and inaccessible when this Add Documentation Entry dialog starts up. If you want to use your own title text in the documentation tree of KDevelop you must first check the Custom title field. This will provide access to the Title field contents where you then may fill in any text you like.

KDE API Documentations

The other two lists on the General documentation tree configuration page concern API documentations provided by the KDE system.

In short, such an API documents the interface to certain library functions. There are two common ways to produce an API documentation from the sources, namely the older one using the KDE KDoc application and the far more versatile using the externally provided Doxygen tool.

Documentation Generated by Doxygen.  KDevelop will have filled in a link to the current KDE Libraries API, provided it found one at installation time. There are two basic ways for KDevelop to find out:

  • Either you provided the configure command with the --with-kdelibsdoxy-dir option when you compiled KDevelop (see the How to Obtain a KDevelop API Documentation chapter).

  • Or the configure command did automatically find a Doxygen generated KDE Libraries API in one of several standard locations it knows of.

If KDevelop did not find a valid Doxygen generated KDE Libraries API at its first start-up the Documentation Generated by Doxygen list will be empty.

You may change the entries in the Documentation Generated by Doxygen list using the buttons to the right.

Note

After you first started up KDevelop after a new installation you should in any case check whether the KDE Libraries API had been correctly set up in the documentation tree. It is advisable to have this API documentation at hand because it is basic to all KDE programming.

Tip

The KDE system provides more API documentation than the KDE Libraries API only. You will need additional interfaces information if you want to e.g. include the Kate part into you programs. For this Kate part API for example you should compile and install the KDE Base Libraries API from the sources (using the make apidox and make install commands on the kdebase sources) and then add an entry to the Documentation Generated by Doxygen list like this:


Adding a KDE Base API to the list


(Of course you should replace the /opt/kde-cvs/ directory in the Location field example with the path to your KDE installation.)

Documentation Generated by KDoc.  There is not much KDoc based API documentation around these days. Hence this list will be empty after the first KDevelop start-up. If you want to add some KDoc based API documentation use the buttons to the right of this list.

Handling Structured Documentation (KDevelopTOC Files)

The main bulk of KDevelop's documentation tree provides immediate access to structured documentation, local as well as remote ones. You can configure this on the KDevelopTOC Documentation tab of the Documentation Tree configuration page.


Providing standard documentations listed in KDevelop


There is a special feature associated with this. To illustrate, follow these steps: In the documentation tree find an entry shortly below the Qt™/KDE documentation (e.g. “KDE2 Development Book (kde.org)”). Click on the plus sign next to it. A tree will open where you can quickly navigate to subsequent chapters nested several levels deep, all offline. But if you finally select one of the chapters, KDevelop will in many cases try to access a remote documentation file.

KDevelop TOC Files

So you can locally navigate remote documentation without wasting net access ressources. KDevelop makes this possible through the use of special “table of content” files, which are denoted by .toc filename extensions. Any such KDevelop TOC file contains an XML™ structured description of the document to be accessed.

Standard Directory of KDevelop TOC Files.  When KDevelop was installed usually a series of predefined .toc files has been put into the $KDEDIR/share/apps/kdevdoctreeview/tocs directory. These are fairly simple, structured text files. You may look at them using a text editor or other text display facility.

Basic Structure of KDevelop TOC Files

header
<!DOCTYPE kdeveloptoc>
<kdeveloptoc>
(title)
(base address)
(content structure)
</kdeveloptoc>

This XML™ structure will be parsed by the KDevelop Documentation plugin to set up the documentation tree contents and to guide the user in navigating the documentation. It contains all information necessary to display titles and access the documentation file contents.

title
<title> (some title string) </title>

This is the title KDevelop will display at the basic levels in the documentation tree.

Note

This displayed title currently cannot be changed by the user. If you want another text be displayed, you must manually change the <title> entry in the .toc file.

base address
<base href=" (base document URL) "/>

This URL points to the location where all files of this documentation are located. It will be prepended before each section URL in the following content structure list. So, if you e.g. downloaded a documentation from a remote server, all you need to display the files from this new location is to change its <base> URL.

You need not change the .toc file, however. Better use the Edit button on the KDevelopTOC Documentation tab of the documentation customization page as shown below.

content structure
<tocsect1 name=" (section title) " url=" (section URL) ">
...
<tocsectn name=" (section title) " url=" (section URL) "/>
...
</tocsect1>

All remaining navigation and access information is stored in a series of nested <tocsecti> ... </tocsecti> pairs. Each i denotes a consecutive nesting level down to number n which will correspond to the finally displayed documentation section.

Any <tocsecti> entry must have a name="" attribute associated with it. This will be displayed as level title in the documentation tree. It should correspond to an actual documentation section.

There may be an url="" attribute associated with any i nesting level. When the user clicks on a section title in the documentation tree KDevelop will try to access the file at the location pointed to by the combined base and section URL.

The <tocsectn/> entry must have an url="" attribute whatsoever. This final nested <tocsectn/> does not come in pairs but will immediately be closed by a / before the > bracket.

Note

Any address combined of base and section URL must point to some displayable text file. Usually this will be an HTML-structured file. It is possible to link to anchor marks within such an HTML file using the standard # notation of the format: /base-url/section-url#anchor-mark.

Altering the KDevelop TOC Documentation

There are two ways to alter the KDevelop TOC Documentation. You may change the docuentation tree list, i.e. add to or remove entries from the KDevelopTOC Documentation tab of the Documentation Tree configuration page. Additionally you may point an existing documentation to another base location.

Adding KDevelop TOC Files.  Adding an entry to the KDevelopTOC Documentation tab is fairly straightforward. At first you need a .toc file to some structured documentation following the structure shown above. This is easily constructed using any standard text editor. Then add this file using the Add button on the configuration page.

Removing a KDevelop TOC Entry.  To remove an entry from the KDevelopTOC Documentation tab first select it in the list, then click on the Remove button on the configuration page.

Warning

Think twice before you click on the Remove button!

KDevelop will not only remove the list entry but also delete the .toc file from the directorye. You may want to keep a backup copy if the documentation was valuable.

If the .toc file cannot be removed (i.e. if you have no write access), the entry will remain in the KDevelopTOC Documentation list.

Changing the Base Address of a KDevelop TOC Entry.  If the documentation in an already listed .toc file should be read from another location, tell KDevelop to alter the documentation base address. Select the file in the KDevelopTOC Documentation list, then click on the Edit button.

For historical reasons clicking the Edit button will pop up a different dialog which stems from an older approach to structured library documentation:


Changing the base address of a KDevelop TOC entry


The Library name field shows the name of the .toc file which was selected in the list. As this is for information only, the field remains inaccessible.

The Documentation path field contains the base address which KDevelop currently uses to access this documentation. Change it to point to the new documentation origin KDevelop shall subsequently use. Then press OK to alter the access.

The remaining Library source path dialog field is of no importance. Just ignore it.

Reverting to the Default Base Address.  KDevelop will not change the .toc file contents. Instead it keeps the current base address in an internal list.

If you want to get the original documentation base address back, use the Default button in this Library Documentation dialog. KDevelop will replace its internal documentation base pointer by the contents of the <base> field in the corresponding .toc file.

DevHelp Documentation

(... to be written ...)


Providing DevHelp documentation


Displaying Selected Documentation in a Project

(... to be written ...)

Bookmarked Documentation

(... to be written ...)


Eplicitely adding documentation to the bookmarks



Adding existing documentation to the bookmarks


Setting Up Text Search Indexes

(... to be written ...)


Setting up text search indexes


Advanced Configuration
 

Advanced Configuration

(... to be written ...)

Plugin Tools

(... to be written ...)

Abbreviations for the Word Completion

(... to be written ...)

Adding KDE Standard Applications to the Tools Menu

(... to be written ...)

Adding External Applications to Menus

(... to be written ...)

Adding to the Tools Menu

(... to be written ...)

Adding to the File Context Menu

(... to be written ...)

Adding to the Directory Context Menu

(... to be written ...)

Chapter 7. Getting Started—the Application Wizard
 

Chapter 7. Getting Started—the Application Wizard

Bernd Pol

In KDevelop software development work is organized in projects. Such a project keeps everything together which belongs to a complete programming task: source files, additional data files, any actually needed management facilities as the make system as well as access to all components and any additional tools needed to get the application up and running.

Organizing all development work in projects allows you to easily switch between the global tasks at hand. This is quite handy if you e.g. work on several applications at the same time as is often the case. Tell KDevelop to open the project you want to work at and you may proceed in the environment just where you left.

New Projects

Whenever you want to initiate a new programming project quite a lot of formal setup procedures need to be done. An initial directory structure has to be set up, initial header and source files must be provided, the make system has to be initialized, etc.

KDevelop provides an easy way to initiate a new programming project—the Application Wizard. You will find the Application Wizard at menu entry Project->New Project.

Only a short series of steps is necessary to start a new programming project, using the Application Wizard:

  1. Select the programming language you want to use and the type of the application you want to build from a set of predefined templates.

  2. Supply some general information as application name, directory where the application shall be built, etc.

  3. Decide whether you want to use a version control system, like e.g. CVS, and supply the necessary data if needed.

  4. Set up some templates for initial header and source files (if applicable).

  5. Finally tell Application Wizard to set up all initial stuff, directory structure, starting header/source file templates, and management tools, like e.g. an initial make skeleton, etc.

Voilà—that's all. Application Wizard will have provided you with a primary functional set of programming files, where you can readily start working.

Let's look at all this in more detail now ...

Initial Steps

To create a new project in KDevelop, select New Project from the Project menu. The Create New Project dialog will pop up showing an initial General page:


Initial dialog to set up a new project


As you see, this dialog is divided into an upper and a lower part. In the upper part you can decide on the programming language and application type, the lower part holds some general information.

Select Programming Language and Application Type

The left hand side of the upper part in this dialog is where you do the selection work. When it shows up, you'll find there a list of folders each labeled with a programming language, as there are:

  • Ada

  • C

  • C++

  • Database (SQL Projects)

  • Fortran

  • Haskell

  • Java

  • PHP

  • Pascal

  • Perl

  • Python

  • Ruby

  • Shell (Scripts for the Bash Shell)

To be precise, these folders do not contain real programming tools actually. They do lead to pre-defined templates you can use as a starting point for development in that language. To get an idea of what is provided, just open the folders one after the other. There will be a series of subfolders on some, one or more simple entries only on others. The subfolders you see organize the available templates according to some tasks, the simple entries name the templates you may select.

We cannot go into detail here on which tasks each template provides, but it's easy to find out. Whenever you select a template entry some information is displayed in the fields to the right. In the lower field you will find a short description on what the template is supposed to do. In the field above that a picture will be shown, if available, about the outcome of the application this template produces if you compile and run it unmodified. Usually this is a screenshot of the main window the application will display.

Select the template which best fits your application's goals as a starting point. Then enter the general properties information in the lower field as shown in the next chapter.

Selecting a Project Management System.  Each template is bound to a specific Project Management System. Currently there is no direct means to freely select such a Project Management System. You have to find a template which suits your needs or alter your project accordingly after creation.

Provide General Information

The lower part of the Create New Project dialog General page is a framed field labeled Properties. You must provide some general information about your project here so that the Application Wizard knows how to build the initial structure.

Application Name.  Your application needs a name of course. Enter this in the uppermost Properties field, called Application Name. We use “MyApp” as an example.

When you do so, you will notice that the Application Wizard refuses to accept special characters of any kind. The only characters accepted are:

  • upper and lower case characters

  • numbers

  • the underline character

One prominent cause of this restriction is that the Application Wizard will use this application name as the basis of some class names it will construct when it sets up an initial project. Thus the name of the application must stick to the rules of the programming language you use.

The Project Directory.  The other prominent cause of this restriction you can see at the bottom line of the Properties area. It is labeled Final location and shows the directory where the Application Wizard will create the application.

As you type the application name you will notice that the Application Wizard repeats your input at the end of the Final location line, using lower case only characters.

Thus you must select the name of your new application with care. If you end up with an already used directory the Application Wizard will not allow you to continue to the next step, keeping the Next > button deactivated (grayed). Yet, it will warn you in this case by appending “(dir/file already exist)” to the Final location line.

The Starting Path.  There are two ways to select another path for your new application. One is to select another name. Yet, this is not always feasible (you might e.g. set up for another version of an already existing application). As an alternative you may select another path to the application directory.

This is done in the second row input field of the Properties, named Location. What you enter here is the starting path of the new application development directory. The Application Wizard appends the application name to this path when it initializes the new project. The result is shown in the Final location line to give you better control on what is going on.

Application Wizard will copy an initial value to the Location field on start-up. This is taken from what you have chosen in the Default projects directory field during the general configuration steps. In our case we have KDevelop set up to use /home/devel/projects/ as initial path for new projects.

Alter the Location field contents so that the application development directory shown in the Final location line will be unique.

Note

Take care that the path you enter in the Location field already exists. Otherwise you will not be able to continue to the next step. The Application Wizard will warn you about non-existing paths by appending “(invalid)” to the Final location line.

Personal Information.  The fields following this are not so critical. Just supply your name (i.e. the name of the person who is responsible for the application) in the Author field, and a valid e-mail address in the Email field, so that users can give you feedback on the application.

Note

  1. The Application Wizard fills these fields with some default values, taken from the Email presets in the KDE control center. If these defaults in the Create New Project Author and Email fields do not suit, you may want to have a look at your mail configuration in the KDE control center.

  2. The Application Wizard will integrate this information into the starting program templates if applicable. In KDE C++ programs for instance you will find it near the beginning of the main.cpp source file.

  3. Of all fields, the Email is optional, reflecting the fact that not every developer may have access to the internet. You may keep this field empty if you wish and proceed nevertheless.

Version and License Info.  Finally enter a starting version number for your new application in the Version field, and select the license under which you want your application be put from the License tab.

If you select an application type for which the Application Wizard provides common source template texts (e.g. C/C++), you may view the license notification text on the third page of this Create New Project dialog (see the Supply header/source templates chapter below).

If you selected “Custom” from the License tab you must provide a license text on your own.

Note

Both version and license information will as well be integrated into the starting templates in a suiting format the application type you selected does provide.

Once you have correctly entered all this information stuff, press the Next > button to proceed as shown in the following chapters.

Supply Version System Information

In a second step the Application Wizard will lead you to the Version Control System page where you can decide which version control system you want to use.

Note

This discussion concentrates on the needs for project creation only. For more information on CVS see the Using CVS chapter below.

No Version Control System Wanted.  Initially there is “None” selected in the Version control system tab, and the page will be empty otherwise. If you don't want to use a version control system, just click the Next > button and go on.

Using CVS.  Otherwise you must reselect the version control system you want to use from the Version control system tab. We use “CVS” for our example. If you select this, the Application Wizard will redisplay the page, now showing a series of fields you must fill in.


Set new project up for CVS


A version control system such as CVS (which means “Concurrent Versions System”) stores copies of selected project files in some sort of a database. If you use CVS you can amongst others upload (“commit”) those files or load them back into your project directory (“checkout”, or “update”). The special thing about this is that the files in the versioning database are stored in a structured way which allows you to always revert to an earlier development state if you need so. And CVS allows multiple designers to fairly easily collaborate on a big project (such as KDevelop) without disturbing each others work.

CVS Root.  CVS needs to manage the versioning database it keeps from your project files. To accomplish this it keeps some special database information in an own directory, called the CVS root. The first step on setting up CVS for your new project thus is to tell KDevelop where this root is located.

Local CVS root. There are two basic possibilities. Either you want to use a local CVS database or you use a database which is held on a remote server. If you develop for your own, you may want use the CVS database as some sort of a backup system on your own computer. Usually this is set up in your home directory root and given the name cvsroot. This may look as follows:

/home/devel/cvsroot (where devel simply denotes the “developing” user, just for example)

Note

In fact, this is a short form. Exactly, the local CVS root should be addressed using the :local: prefix. The short form is only allowed in cases where the filename starts with a slash (/). The full name for our example local CVS root would exactly look like: :local:/home/devel/cvsroot

Enter the name of the CVS root directory your system has been set up for in the CVS root field. In principle you can select any name, even use multiple CVS databases, but it is advisable that you stick to the CVS root once set up.

Initialize a new CVS root. If there does not exist a CVS root yet, KDevelop can command the CVS system to create one for you in the given directory. Just check the Init root checkbox below the CVS root field.

Note

As said, KDevelop only commands the CVS system to initialize a new CVS root. It does nothing by itself to this directory. Fortunately CVS is clever enough to check whether the CVS root directory already exists. Hence it does no harm if you should have inadvertently checked Init root on an already existing CVS root directory.

Remote CVS root. There are occasions where the CVS database is to be kept on a remote server, especially when several developers work at the same project. Then you must enter the CVS root URL of this server in the CVS root field. For example, if you want access to the KDE CVS server:

:pserver:mylogin@cvs.kde.org:/home/kde (where mylogin denotes the login name set up in your KDE CVS account)

Remote CVS Server Types.  Basically there are two widely used remote CVS server types, the pserver which uses a password-secured non-encrypted protocol, and the ext server which uses an rsh or ssh encrypted data transfer. They are distinguished by the URL prefix they use:

:pserver:

for the “password protected server” non-encrypted type, and

:ext:

for an rsh or ssh encrypted server type. For example

:ext:mylogin@cvs.cervisia.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/cervisia

accesses the CVS root of the widely used Cervisia CVS management tool on the SourceForge server.

If you want to use an rsh or ssh encrypted server for CVS access you must tell KDevelop the encryption protocol to be used. Just enter rsh or ssh in the CVS_RSH field of the Create New Project Version Control System page.

Note

There is a caveat if you use an encrypted server for CVS from within KDevelop. See the Using CVS chapter for details.

The CVS Repository.  So far you have told KDevelop where the CVS root resides which manages the versioning database and how to access it. Now you need to tell KDevelop under which name you want CVS save your project files in that database. Such a place your project files will be held in CVS is called a repository.

In principle you can use any name for the CVS repository of your project files as long as it adheres to the specifications of naming a file. Yet, most developers simply use the name of the application itself. CVS will build a directory with this name in the CVS root, hence it is more easily found if you keep the application name for it.

Just enter the repository name you want to use in the CVS repository field of the Create New Project Version Control System page. In our example this is: MyApp

Warning

Take care not to use a repository which already exists! The CVS system does not warn about duplicate files but will shovel everything in which does not produce a formal conflict. You will mess up everything!

The Remaining Fields.  There is not much work left to do. Application Wizard has already set up the remaining fields for you. In detail:

The Vendor field is used for compatibility reasons only. You can stick to the “vendor” default the Application Wizard puts in here.

The Message field allows you to comment the initial CVS contents. Use any text you like or just stick to the “new project” default the Application Wizard did put in.

The Release tag holds the name which tags the initial state of your project. Such a tag names a certain point within the CVS repository by which you can later access this state of your development. (See more in the Using CVS chapter.)

The Application Wizard has put a default “start” tag in here which is a worthy proposal. Just stick to it.

Note

When any information of all these is wrong KDevelop usually will not know about until project construction time. It is the CVS system which will figure out those errors when it tries to build the repository. Hence you must keep an eye to the Messages window of KDevelop when the project is created in the final setup step. If anything was in error with CVS you will in most cases see an error message like this:


* cd '/home/devel/test' && cvs -d '/home/devel/mycvsroot' \
  import -m 'new project' '' 'vendor' 'start' &&\
  sh /opt/kde3/share/apps/kdevcvs/buildcvs.sh . '' \
  '/home/devel/mycvsroot'
* cvs [import aborted]: /home/devel/mycvsroot/CVSROOT: No such file or
  directory
* *** Exited with status: 1 ***

If this happens you will have to either manually set up CVS (KDevelop should have successfully initialized your project files at this time) or delete the project directory and start over again with New Project from the Project menu.

After you have entered all CVS related information, click the Next > to go on.

Note

If you want to correct an error on the previous Create New Project page, just press the < Back button. The Application Wizard will remember your settings on the current page, so you can easily proceed when you come back.

Supply Header/Source Templates

The next step brings you to a series of pages where you can set up common information you want to include in your source and header files, if the task at hand allows.

Both header and source templates are provided for C and C++ applications, each on its own page. For other languages there may be source templates only. And in some cases you will even find this template page empty.

If the page is used, Application Wizard will fill in some common header comment which for a C++ based application might look like:


/***************************************************************************
 *   Copyright (C) 2003 by Your Name                                       *
 *   you@you.com                                                           *
 *                                                                         *
 *   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify  *
 *   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by  *
 *   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or     *
 *   (at your option) any later version.                                   *
 *                                                                         *
 *   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,       *
 *   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of        *
 *   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the         *
 *   GNU General Public License for more details.                          *
 *                                                                         *
 *   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License     *
 *   along with this program; if not, write to the                         *
 *   Free Software Foundation, Inc.,                                       *
 *   59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.             *
 ***************************************************************************/

Other templates will provide similar information in a format according to the definitions of the programming language you want to use.

As you might have noticed, the applications manager did readily fill in some information you provided on the first General page of the Create New Project dialog, namely the contents of the Author and Email fields. Also proper license information will have been inserted according to your selection in the License tab.

How to Edit the Templates

The templates you set up in the Create New Project dialog will later be processed whenever you command KDevelop to set up a new source and/or header file. The information you provided here will be included at top as a documentation header, before the code parts begin.

You are not restricted to plain text however. KDevelop knows of several variables which allow you to include actual information in the file. The Application Wizard did in fact use some such variables to insert the Author, Email, and License informations into the initial template text.

Include Doxygen File Information.  If, for example, you want the Doxygen-built API documentation to display some further information about the file's contents in its filenames list, you may include the following lines in the source file template:


/**
 * \file $MODULE$.cpp
 * \brief (put some short descripion here).
 **/

Whenever you create a new source file, KDevelop will replace the $MODULE$ variable by the name body of the newly created file. For example, if you created a new C++ class named ASimpleTest you will see the following lines in the asimpletest.cpp file:


/**
 * \file asimpletest.cpp
 * \brief (put some short descripion here).
 **/

You will still have to provide the short description after the “\brief” keyword, but part of the job is automatically done for you.

The License Text File.  As another example you could include an explicit hint to the license text you want to use into the template. Use the $LICENSEFILE$ variable for this and add for example this line:


//   See $LICENSEFILE$ for the full license text.

The Application Wizard will replace the $LICENSEFILE$ with the name of the file where the full license text is to be found, namely:


//   See COPYING for the full license text.

for the GPL license, or


//   See LICENSE.BSD for the full license text.

if you decided to put your application under the BSD license.

Thee are of course more variables KDevelop knows of. See the Editing the templates section in the Editing tools chapter for what is possible.

Note

The templates you define here will come in effect only after the Application Wizard has created the new project. You will find this information on top of the files you created yourself in the development process. When creating the initial files the Application Wizard will use some predefined standard templates. You will have to manually adapt those initial files to your needs.

Build the Initial Project Files

Almost everything is done now. On the last templates page the Next > button will have changed to read Finish now.

Think twice before you click on it! You still have the option to revise everything by repeatedly using the < Back button. As the Application Wizard remembers all information you did input so far, it may be advisable for you to take the time and look back once again. In case you use local CVS, do not forget to double-check the CVS repository name (there should be no subdirectory with that name in the CVS root directory already—if it does, try another repository name).

If ever you don't want the new project be built, abort the Create New Project dialog by the Cancel button. Otherwise click Finish and watch in the Messages window how the Application Wizard initiates the project.

If you want to use a versioning system (CVS) there will be two runs actually. Application Wizard will first build the project directories and files and then call up the CVS program which restarts the Messages window with its own contents. If any error occurs in either of these runs, the process will stop showing you an according error message in the window.

Note

In many cases when your new project has been set up this way, KDevelop will automatically load the source file(s) of one or more basically important modules so you can readily start work. (Which source modules will be displayed—if any at all—however depends on the template initially selected in the Application Wizard.)

Do not forget to initially check what the Application Wizard has provided. For example you may want to change the initial heading informations according to your own templates. Usually you will find these in a templates subdirectory in your project directory. Some simple copy operations will mostly suffice.

Then it is adviceable that you compile the initial project before you attempt to change any code. In most cases this initial compilation should be possible. Thus you can make up whether the project really was set up according to your needs. If it was not, simply remove the project directory (in your local CVS root as well if you use one) and start over again.

Warning

Before you compile your new project the first time, have a look at Project->Build Configuration. If there are three selections displayed: default, optimized, and debug, with debug selected, by all means stick to this, or use optimized instead.

Due to some limitations in the current autoconf/automake setup you should by no means build in the default configuration. This will corrupt some internal directory settings, thus making configure complain when you try to use it in the optimized, or debug build configuration afterwards.

(This applies to these multiselection capabilities only. If the application type you selected provides a default build configuration only, you should of course use this one.)

Behind the Scenes
 

Behind the Scenes

It is always advisable to look at the messages output and try to understand what had happened. At least in principle you should know what was be done when the Application Wizard initiated your new project. We cannot go into the details but will have a survey of those messages to get an idea of what was going on behind the scenes.

Tip

If your project was set up for local CVS you will have got two series of messages of which the first set most probably was gone before you could thoroughly read, as CVS used the Messages window for its own purposes. So we caught both series in separate runs—set up the application twice, one time without CVS, then removed the directory and started over, this time setting the application up with CVS.

You may want to follow this same procedure if anything weird happened and you just could not catch the messages of the first setup step.

We will have look at the Messages outputs of both steps:

Setting Up the Application

If you set up “MyApp” as in our previous example the Application Wizard should have printed the following messages (we re-arranged the output a bit for readability and you may click on a line to directly jump to its description):


* perl /opt/kde3/share/apps/kdevappwizard/template-kapp/script \
  --author='Your Name' \
  --email='you@you.com' \
  --version='0.1' \
  --appname='MyApp' \
  --dest='/home/devel/projects/myapp' \
  --source='/opt/kde3/share/apps/kdevappwizard' \
  --license='GPL' \
  --licensefile='COPYING' \
  --filetemplates='h,/tmp/kde-devel/kdevelopcDE5Ja.tmp,\
                   cpp,/tmp/kde-devel/kdevelopsRrLab.tmp'
* Making destination directory
* Installing file templates
* Installing license file
* Installing admin directory
* Installing GNU coding standard files
* Installing Docbook template
* Installing project file
* Installing application framework
* Installing application sources
* Finished
* *** Success ***

A Perl Script Called.  As you see from the first line, the Application Wizard did construct a Perl program call from the settings you made in the Create New Project dialog. The called script resides in a directory which was determined from the application type template you selected in the upper part of the Create New Project dialog General page.

In our case this script is located in the /opt/kde3/share/apps/kdevappwizard/template-kapp/ directory. Just replace /opt/kde3/ by the KDE directory on your system.

This Perl script is called with a series of parameters, all marked by “--” prefixes, wherein the Application Wizard put information from the other selections you made in the Create New Project dialog.

The exact series of initialization steps depends on which Perl script was called. If you want to check, just look into the script file the perl command on the first Messages window line did call.

Note

The setup scripts make use of a set of Perl subroutines collected in the kdevelop.pm file which you may find in the share/apps/kdevwizard/template-common/ subdirectory of your KDE installation.

The Application Base Directory.  When the Perl script is run, you get a series of messages of what is about to be done in the next installation step. At first a destination directory will be set up. This is the base directory of your application, just what you got displayed in the Final location line on the Create New Project dialog General page. The script uses the value of the --dest parameter in the Perl command above.

The File Templates.  In the next step the file templates you set up in the Create New Project dialog will be copied to the templates subdirectory of this destination directory. As you can see from the --filetemplates parameter, the templates are submitted in pairs—the suffixes they are used for first, followed by the name of a temporary file in which the Application Wizard has copied the contents of the templates dialog pages. These suffixes will be taken as the filenames of where to store the template texts.

In our example two such template files were installed, namely templates/h for C++ header and templates/cpp for C++ source files.

The License File.  On the General page of the Create New Project dialog you selected the license you want to put your application under. The Application Wizard initiated two actions from this. One was the license indication it put into the templates. The other action causes the according license file to be copied in your application base directory.

The --licensefile parameter tells the Perl script which license text file to copy. In our example the /home/devel/projects/myapp/COPYING file will have been installed in this step.

The Administration Directory.  KDevelop needs a bunch of files to administrate the project. These are put in the admin subdirectory of your application base directory.

Application Wizard creates the admin subdirectory in this step and extracts the standard set of files it needs from the share/apps/kdevappwizard/template-common/admin.tar.gz tarball in your KDE directory.

Note

KDevelop always uses the same set of standard files for its administration purposes. Hence no parameter is needed in the Perl script call to set up the admin subdirectory.

The GNU Coding Standard Files.  There are several standard files to be distributed with every application which conforms to the GNU coding standard. The Perl script extracts these files from the share/apps/kdevappwizard/template-common/gnu.tar.gz tarball of your KDE installation directory and customizes them according to the information you provided in the Create New Page dialog.

After this step you will find the following files in your application base directory:

  • AUTHORS, initially containing information from the --author and --email parameters.

  • COPYING, this is the general GNU license, which all GNU conforming applications must contain—even if you decided to put your application under another license.

  • ChangeLog, initially empty—you should protocol all major changes here.

  • INSTALL contains generic installation instructions—modify this if special precautions and/or procedures are needed to install your application.

  • README, initially empty—put any information here the user should know before installing your application.

  • TODO, initially empty—put information here about what has to be done to further develop your application. You can use this as a notebook for your own purposes, but it is all the well really helpful once you have put your application in public domain.

The Initial Application Documentation.  Every project you set up will contain an initial DocBook template from where you can start to write your application documentation. The Perl script will in this step have set up doc and doc/en subdirectories of the application base directory with an initial doc/en/index.docbook template and some automake Makefile.am files from which KDevelop can later build help system files.

The Project File.  Up to here most of the more global stuff has been set up, things which more or less are to be found in any KDevelop project. With this step the more application-specific setup processes start. These may vary upon the type of application you selected. Have a look at the actual Perl script the Application Wizard called up for your new application if you want to lookup details. We will continue to follow the example steps listed above.

In the first step of these the KDevelop project management file is copied out of the template directory, where the Perl script resides. In our case the share/apps/kdevappwizard/template-kapp/app.kdevelop file was copied into the application base directory and then customized according to the selections made in the Create New Project dialog.

Note

You may want to have a look at the resulting project file which in our case was saved as /home/devel/projects/myapp/myapp.kdevelop. It is written in XML format and easily to be displayed with Kate or any other text editor. But take care nothing to change as KDevelop relies on its contents.

The Application Framework. Now it is about time that the directory structures and other maintenance files be set up to put the new application in and have it maintained. A so-called application framework will be set up in this step. Its structure basically dependends on the type of application you selected in the Create New Project dialog, but parts of it are common enough to be found in other projects, too.

In our case the following directory structure has been created in the /home/devel/projects/myapp/ application base directory:

  • The src subdirectory is meant to hold the source files of your application.

  • The debug subdirectory will hold the compiled output of the “debug” build configuration. (See the Build configurations chapter to learn more about that.) As the name says, you should use this directory for debug purposes.

  • The optimized subdirectory will hold the compiled output of the “optimized” build configuration. You should test an optimized version of your application from within here.

  • The po subdirectory is meant for translation purposes. It will hold so-called “Portable Object” files (.po files) and templates (.pot files) which will be processed by a translation program as e.g. KBabel.

All these directories will not kept empty but filled with a series of Makefile and other files KDevelop uses to process the sources of the application. Also some initial icon files for the new application will have been put into the src subdirectory, if applicable. In our case you will find two of them: src/hi16-app-myapp.png and src/hi32-app-myapp.png which both hold standard KDE application icons.

Application Sources Installed.  This framework finally will be used to put the initial source files of your new project in the src directory. The actual files highly depend on the application type you selected in the Create New Project dialog. You will soon see yourself as this is the stuff you will actually have to work on.

Setting Up CVS

Now let us have a look at what the Messages window will contain when the Application Wizard continues to build our example project. If no error occurred during the first pass, the Messages contents will revert to create the local CVS repository.

As before we reformatted the output lines a bit for readability. And we removed some superfluous lines (where the “. . .” dots are).


* cd '/home/devel/projects/myapp' \
  && cvs -d '/home/devel/cvsroot' \
         import -m 'new project' \
                'MyApp' \
                'vendor' \
                'start' \
  && sh /opt/kde3/share/apps/kdevcvs/buildcvs.sh . \
                                                 'MyApp' \
                                                 '/home/devel/cvsroot'
  . . .
* N MyApp/NEWS
* N MyApp/TODO
* N MyApp/README
  . . .
* N MyApp/admin/configure.in.bot.end
* N MyApp/templates/h
* N MyApp/templates/cpp
*
* No conflicts created by this import
*
* *** Success ***

As you see from the first message line, the Application Wizard built another shell command line which conducts the CVS work to be done. At first the shell changes to the newly created application base directory to use it as default in the following steps.

Building the CVS Repository.  In the second command line part the CVS application will be called to import the initial project contents into the wanted repository. Again, the work in detail is commanded by a series of command line arguments to the CVS application call.

  • -d '/home/devel/cvsroot'—the -d option tells CVS which root directory is to be used. In our case this is the local CVS root located in /home/devel/cvsroot.

  • import—tells the CVS application which operation to perform in this root. We want to import files into the CVS database. To accomplish this, the import command needs some arguments of its own:

    • -m 'new project'—the -m option provides import some message text for this action. It will be stored in the database and can later be recalled to identify the data which was kept in this step. In our case “new project” denotes the storage of our first files in the database.

    • 'MyApp'—the second argument tells CVS which repository to use. If it does not exist, it will be created prior to the file import actions. In this case the MyApp repository will be created.

    • 'vendor'—this following argument is a tag, a symbolic name which marks a series of files in the directory. There are several different meanings such a tag can have (see Using CVS for more information), this one in principle marks the whole bunch of files which subsequently will ever be stored in this repository. It is of no particular use to us, so “vendor” is as good a name as any other.

    • 'start'—is another tag. It marks the release, in easy words a series of subsequently saved files which belong together. We used “start” here, a meaningful description of the use of this initial series.

The Imported Files.  The CVS application will create the repository and then start to import all files from our /home/devel/projects/myapp directory. It subsequently reports any file which is loaded—this is the contents of the whole bunch of “N” lines following in the Messages window. The N denotes that this file was newly imported into the repository.

Depending on the type of the new application there will be quite a lot of those “N” lines. We truncated the output showing only the first and last three lines as an example.

The CVS Success Message.  CVS always reports when an operation was successfully performed. In our case the “No conflicts created by this import” message was printed, followed by the general “*** Success ***” line as no other operation had to be performed.

Note

There could have been some error messages about conflicting files if the repository already existed because CVS checks the file contents according to some formal criteria and will report any conflict it possibly finds.

Building the CVS Administration Entries.  The CVS import operation is concluded at this point. The repository has been set up and all files we want to be kept were stored in the database. Yet there is more work to do, because the CVS application needs some administration information kept in every directory of the application. It uses this information later to communicate with the cvs root and repository.

If we were working with CVS alone we had to provide a means for CVS to store this information in our working directory. For instance we could check out the files again in an empty base directory in which case CVS automatically would write all administrative operation together with the checked out files.

In KDevelop fortunately there is an easier way. It provides the buildcvs.sh shell script in the /opt/kde3/share/apps/kdevcvs/ directory (again replace /opt/kde with your KDE installation directory), which the Application Wizard called after the CVS application had successfully finished its work.

The buildcvs.sh script mainly will put a CVS subdirectory into each directory of the application framework. Each of these CVS subdirectories will hold three file entries as follows:

  • Root holds the name of the server on which the CVS root is located. In our case this is the local /home/devel/cvsroot root. The rationale behind this is to always use the same repository for these files, because CVS does not store them as a whole but will record only the differences of the subsequent parts. This will save lots of disk space yet makes it mandatory that all subsequent information be kept together under all circumstances.

  • Repository serves the same purpose. CVS keeps the name of the repository to use herein, MyApp in our case.

  • Entries holds the names and some other data about the files CVS will care of in this directory. This is because CVS does not necessarily keep every application file in the repository. You can tell it which files to store and which to ignore—this information is kept in the Entries file.

All these efforts are necessary because CVS's work is directory-oriented. As CVS previously had stored all files in the MyApp framework, the buildcvs.sh script simply scans every directory and puts the names of all application files it finds into the according CVS/Entries file.

The script runs silently, just closing without any more line in the Messages window when the work was done.

Chapter 8. Advanced Project Management
 

Chapter 8. Advanced Project Management

Loading Projects

Loading a Recently Used Project

(... to be written ...)

Loading an Existing Project

(... to be written ...)

Converting Old KDevelop Project Files

KDevelop allows you to open old KDevelop 2.x project files and convert them to KDevelop files. To do so go to Open Project... and select KDevelop 2 project files in the Filter:. Then select project file you want to open. The project gets converted to KDevelop and saved as a KDevelop project file.

Importing an Existing Project

To import an existing directory in KDevelop select Import Existing Directory from the Project menu. You should see the Import Directory Wizard, as seen below:

Figure 8.1. The Import Directory Dialog



Tayloring the Project—Project Options
 

Tayloring the Project—Project Options

(... to be written ...)

Chapter 9. Editing Tools
 

Chapter 9. Editing Tools

Code Snippets

Features (preliminary survey)

  • SnippetPart adds a tool-view which by default docs to the right

  • Adding, editing and removing of snippets is available via a popup-menu

  • Double-clicking a snippet form the list inserts it into to the active view at the current cursor position

  • Tool tips show the content of a snippet

  • Snippets are stored in the users home-directory, so every user can have his own snippets

  • Snippets can contain variables in the style of $VARNAME$. On using the snippet the user is prompted to enter replacement value for the variables

Keyboard Mapping
 

Keyboard Mapping

In the following, we will list the default keybindings of the default editor. You can configure them as you like (how?)

Left

Moves one character left

Right

Moves one character right

Ctrl - Left

Moves one word left

Ctrl - Right

Moves one word right

Up

Moves up one line

Down

Moves down one line

PgUp

Moves up one page

PgDn

Moves down one page

Ctrl - PgUp

Moves to the beginning of the file

Ctrl - PgDn

Moves to the end of the file

Home

Moves to the beginning of the line

End

Moves to the end of the line

For all the keys above, the Shift can be pressed additionally, to mark from the current cursor position to the one afterwards.

Backspace

Deletes one character left

Delete

Deletes the character under the cursor

Ctrl - C

Copies the selected text to the clipboard

Ctrl - V

Pastes the selected text from the clipboard

Ctrl - X

Deletes the selected text and puts it into the clipboard

Ctrl - Z

Undo

Shift - Ctrl - Z

Redo

The Problem Reporter
 

The Problem Reporter

(... to be written ...)

Searching and Grepping
 

Searching and Grepping

Searching for Text

Ctrl-F- Find Ctrl-R- Replace

ISearch

The conventional search with Edit->Find requires you to specify the full search term before starting. Most of the time, it is much faster to search incrementally. If you click into the edit field labeled ISearch in the toolbar, the search is performed as you type. You will find that often the desired term is already found after typing in 3 or 4 letters.

Grep

Both search mechanisms described above are restricted to searching within one source file. An additional tool which allows you to search through a (possibly large) number of files is available through the Search in Files... item in the Edit menu. It is basically a frontend for the grep(1) program.

In the dialog, you can specify which files are searched. There is a number of wildcard patterns available in a combobox. In this way, you can easily restrict the find mechanism to header files. Furthermore, you specify a directory where the search is started. If you check the Recursive box, the search iterates through all directories in the hierarchy below this one.

The search term is in general a regular expression following POSIX syntax. For example, you can use the term "\<K.*" if you want to find all words which begin with the letter K. The following characters are interpreted in a special way:

. Matches any character
^ Matches the beginning of a line
$ Matches the end of a line
\< Matches the beginning of a word
\> Matches the end of a word
? The preceding item matches less than once
* The preceding item is matched zero or more times
+ The preceding item is matched once or more times
{n} The preceding item is matched exactly n times
{n,} The preceding item is matched n or more times
{,n} The preceding item matches less than n times
{n,m} The preceding item matches at least n times but less than m times

Backreferences to bracketed subexpressions are also available by the notation \n.

For C++ programmers, as special bonus there are some search templates available for typical patterns. These allow you to search for example all calls of member functions of a certain object.

Once you start the search by clicking on the Search button, it will be performed by an external, asynchronous process. All found items will appear in the view called Grep. You can then jump to the found items by clicking on them. Note that grep scans the files as they stored in the file system. If you have modified versions of them in your editor, you may get some mismatches in the line number, or some found items will be invalid. You can avoid this by saving all files beforehand.

Code Completion
 

Code Completion

(... to be written ...)

Creating New Files and Classes
 

Creating New Files and Classes

(... to be written ...)

Editing the Templates

(... to be written ...)

Chapter 10. The File Browsers
 

Chapter 10. The File Browsers

On the left side of the main window, KDevelop can display various kinds of lists and trees for the selection of files:

  • File Tree.  This shows a tree view of the file hierarchy below the project directory. If you click on a file, it is loaded into the editor. For files which do not contain text, KDevelop starts an application that can handle the respective MIME type.

    The file tree is regularly updated whenever something changes in the file system. For example, if you create new files or directories (even outside KDevelop), this is immediately reflected in the file list. On Linux, this feature makes use of the FAM library. On other operating systems or over NFS, the directories shown are polled in small intervals.

    The file tree hides files which are usually not interesting, like object files. In the Project options under File views, you can configure (as a comma separated list of wildcards) which patterns are used to filter out irrelevant files.

    Furthermore, you can decide to restrict the file tree to show only files which belong to the currently loaded project. This can be toggled by clicking with the right mouse button on the root item of the tree.

    Figure 10.1. A Screenshot of the File Tree



  • File Groups.  This shows the files belonging to the project, grouped by their file name extension. As in the file tree, you can edit a file by clicking on it with the left mouse button.

    The groups shown in this view can be configured under File views in the Project options dialog. In order to customize the view to your needs, it is helpful to understand how files are distributed on the groups. For each file, KDevelop goes through all groups from top to bottom. In each group, it looks whether the file name matches one of the patterns. If there is a match, the file is shown in this group and the iteration is aborted. This makes it clear that more general patterns should be put below more specific ones. For example, an asterisk for the Other group should be the last pattern.

Chapter 11. The Class Browsers
 

Chapter 11. The Class Browsers

When working on a project in an object-oriented language, your emphasis when working on a project is not on the source files and their names, but on the classes and their relationships. In order to help you navigating in the space of defined classes and symbols, KDevelop includes various class browsers that visualize the class structure in different ways.

Class View

This view is shown on the left side of the main window and contains a linear list of all classes, variables and functions in your project. It is designed as a tree view. If you open a class node by clicking on it, a list with all methods and attributes of the respective class is shown.

Figure 11.1. A Screenshot of the Class View



The class view works in two different modes. By default, all symbols are grouped into “Classes”, “Structs”, “Functions”, “Variables” and “Namespaces”. In the context menu of the view, you can choose List by Namespaces. In this mode, the namespace hierarchy is shown and the symbols grouped into the respective namespace where they are defined. This may be more useful in projects which make heavy use of (nested) namespaces. It is less useful in projects without namespaces.

You can also change the way in which class names are displayed. Normally, the names of the classes are shown, without the namespace in which they are defined. This means, you cannot immediately distinguish classes with the same name in different namespaces. If you rest for a while with the mouse over an item, the full scoped name is shown as a tooltip though. You can decide to always display the fully scoped class name by choosing Full Identifier scopes from the context menu.

Clicking on a class or method in the class view brings you to its definition. You can also jump to the declaration of a method by choosing Go to declaration from the context menu. In the context menu for classes are also the items Add method.. and Add attribute.... This opens dialogs where you can generate new method and variable declaration in the respective class, together with an empty implementation.

Class Tools
 

Class Tools

The class tool dialog is activated by right clicking on a class in the class view and choosing Class tool....

Class Hierarchy
 

Class Hierarchy

(... to be written ...)

Chapter 12. Documentation
 

Chapter 12. Documentation

Documention unfortunately belongs to the most-overlooked programming issues. Yet, once properly set up and maintained internal and external documentation provides most valuable help.

Documentation has multiple facets. There is

  • project internal documentation, mainly consisting of

    • comments in header/source files

    • internal API documentation of your project generated from the program file by special tools, e.g. Doxygen

  • project external documentation, comprising among others

    • external API documentation of e.g. common system libraries (KDE, Qt, etc.)

    • any other documentation (programming language manuals, general system information, HowTo articles and the like)

All this documentation should be easily maintainable and ready at hand whenever you need it. KDevelop has provisions for just this.

The Documentation Browser

Figure 12.1. A Screenshot of the Documentation Tree



Chapter 13. Building and Project Management
 

Chapter 13. Building and Project Management

Bernd Pol

This chapter deals only with compiled projects, such as C++, Java™ or Fortran projects. Projects for scripting languages like Python and PHP work very differently.

You will find here information on:

Summary of Automake Manager

In the Build systems chapter we have given a rough survey of the build systems commonly in use on UNIX systems. In the following sections we will look at this in more detail.

There is some confusion about how to name such things. GNU calls them “build systems” when it describes Automake, Autoconf and Libtool. QMake calls itself “a tool to write Makefiles for different compilers and platforms”. In KDE often the term “project management systems” is used. We will use this term in a broader sense to describe the built-in environments in KDevelop which are used to organize and build your projects. In the context of this section, however, we will mostly talk about “automated build systems”.

The Need for an Automated Build System

If you have a simple “Hello World” program, written in C, you can compile and link it using gcc -o hello hello.c and execute it using the command ./hello, so you do not even need a Makefile.

If you have a C application with several modules and header files and you are only going to run it on your own machine (i.e. it is an in-house application), you will only need a simple Makefile, which is fairly easy to write by hand (use info Make to find out more).

The complications begin when:

  • Your source-code, documentation, graphics, sounds, translations, data files, etc. are located in more than one directory,

  • You have a hierarchy of directories and sub-directories,

  • You are using libraries that are not part of the traditional UNIX® set, such as the Qt™ Object Library or the KDE Desktop libraries,

  • You are using a pre-processor to generate some of your source-code, such as Qt's MOC pre-compiler,

  • You aim to distribute your application worldwide, to people who may not have the same UNIX®/Linux® system, software and hardware as you,

  • You require an automated Install and Uninstall facility,

  • You aim to make your application part of the KDE Desktop set.

If you have some or all of the above situations, you probably need a build system. In the example above we used gcc to compile and build the “Hello World” program, but not all C compilers are called “gcc”. So if you distribute your application to someone who is using some other C compiler, your Makefile must somehow use the name of that person's compiler, otherwise your application will fail to compile—and that is just simple example of what can go wrong.

A build system will iron out these differences for you.

  • It will check that the libraries you need are present on each receiving machine,

  • will automatically scan all your application directories for files to pre-process, compile or install and

  • will install the components of your application in the correct receiving directories, making sure that

  • the directories are created in the receiving machine as required.

In brief, a build system offers safe and secure methods for your application to be compiled and installed correctly on any receiving machine. As we have shown before in the Project Management Systems survey, KDevelop offers three automated build systems and the option of creating your own Makefile, in short (click on the project names to get more information):

Important

One of these four alternatives must be chosen when you create a project and the choice is difficult to change later, so you should give it some thought before you start.

Tutorials on Autoconf/Automake/Libtool

There are several tutorials available on the GNU Build System (Autoconf, Automake and Libtool) of which the Automake Manager makes use.

  • A short autoconf tutorial written by Christopher W. Curtis available on the KDevelop home page. It concentrates on some basic steps to modify a Makefile.

  • A more detailed tutorial can be found in a greater set of tutorials on “Developing software with GNU”.

  • And there is the famous “Goat Book”, titled “Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool”. This is an easily readable, yet concise, introduction in all main aspects of the GNU Autotools.

What does Automake Manager Do?

The Application Wizard will have set up some initial Makefile.am files when you created a New Project of a type that uses the GNU Build System, such as C++->KDE->Application framework. During development Automake Manager creates any other Makefile.am files for projects that use the GNU Build System and maintains them all, Application Wizard and Automake Manager created alike.

There will be one Makefile.am file in each directory of your project that contains files to be compiled or installed. It will contain your specifications for compiling, building and installing files and a reference to any subdirectories that also have a Makefile.am file and possibly some files to compile, build and install.

Note

Your project's directories and source files may be structured to any depth, or you may prefer a flat project-structure with all subdirectories at the top level.

The aim of the GNU Build System is to produce source-code file structures that can be compiled, built and installed on any UNIX® or Linux® system by using the simple commands:

./configure
make
make install    # Usually as "root".

and can be uninstalled by the command make uninstall (usually as root).

How does this work? Well configure is a script that

  • works out the details of whatever system it is in, such as what compiler and libraries to use and where they are located, and then

  • creates recursive Makefile files by filling in the substitutions in the corresponding Makefile.in files.

The Makefile.in are “input” files—templates which provide basic information for the Makefiles to be produced from them by filling in some system dependent information. They are generated by the Automake utility from the Makefile.am files.

The process of going from Makefile.am (.am denotes “Automake” template files) to Makefile files is handled automatically by the KDevelop Project Manager, using the Autoconf utility, M4 macros and other arcana we need not go into here.

So when make runs, it automatically picks up the correct pieces from the current environment, such as compilers and libraries. Similarly, make install puts your application components, such as executables, documentation and data files in the correct places for that environment.

If you distribute your application as a “tarball” (a single compressed file that KDevelop can create for you), it will include the Makefile.in files and the configure script file, so the recipient can compile, build and install your application without having Automake, Autoconf or KDevelop on their machine. The Makefile.am files are also included, just in case the receiver needs to do any source-code modifications.

Note

The rules are rather different if you distribute via a web-based source-code repository such as KDE CVS.

Summary of What Automake Manager Does

  • Generates Makefile.am files in subdirectories it knows as “subprojects”.

  • Updates Makefile.am files as the project structure changes.

  • Updates Makefile.am files as files are added to or removed from the project.

  • Accepts definitions of how the various files are to be built or installed and modifies the Makefile.am accordingly.

  • Accepts parameters used in building or installing (e.g. library names) and ensures that they are used in the required compilation and build steps.

Contents of Automake Files

A Makefile.am file has lines containing variable-names followed by an equals sign and a list of files or parameter values. The “variables” have two-part names, such as bin_PROGRAMS, myapp_SOURCES or kdelnk_DATA. The second part is called the primary and represents something from which to build or install. The first part is called the prefix and represents:

  • A directory in which to do installation (e.g. bin),

  • A qualifier for the primary (e.g. myapp for SOURCES, indicating that the source files listed after myapp_SOURCES go into building myapp),

  • A special prefix noinst (short for “no installation”), usually used to list program header files (.h),

  • Or the special prefix EXTRA, for configuration-dependent stuff.

For more information on Automake and Makefile.am files, look up info Automake.

Basically, Automake Manager creates and updates the variable-names and lists of files or parameters. See the following example of a Makefile.am for a typical application, called myapp.

## Makefile.am for myapp

# this is the program that gets installed.  it's name is used for all
# of the other Makefile.am variables
bin_PROGRAMS = myapp

# set the include path for X, qt and KDE
INCLUDES = $(all_includes)

# the library search path.
myapp_LDFLAGS = $(KDE_RPATH) $(all_libraries)

# the libraries to link against.
myapp_LDADD   = $(LIB_KFILE) $(LIB_KDEPRINT)

# which sources should be compiled for myapp
myapp_SOURCES = main.cpp myapp.cpp myappview.cpp

# these are the headers for your project
noinst_HEADERS = myapp.h myappview.h

# let automoc handle all of the meta source files (moc)
METASOURCES = AUTO

KDE_ICON = myapp

# this is where the kdelnk file will go
kdelnkdir = $(kde_appsdir)/Utilities
kdelnk_DATA = myapp.desktop

# this is where the XML-GUI resource file goes
rcdir = $(kde_datadir)/myapp
rc_DATA = myappui.rc

AM_CXXFLAGS = -DMY_C++_PREPROCESSOR_OPTION

As you can see, many of the items on the right hand side are symbols of the form $(xxx). These are environment variables which are defined in the actual KDE environment and are substituted with real values when ./configure generates the final Makefile files in the receiving machine.

Also, sometime after you have started with KDevelop, it is a good idea to run the command ./configure --help, which will show you the range of things you can change at build and installation time, such as for a test environment. In particular, the command:

./configure --prefix=/where/you/wish
will re-direct the entire installation to a directory structure of your choice, by changing the internal variable $(prefix) to value /where/you/wish.

Automake Manager Operation
 

Automake Manager Operation

In this chapter you will find a basic description of the Automake Manager elements and how to use them. This covers:

The Automake Manager Window

  • Automake Manager runs in a split window. The top part is called the Overall View and the bottom part is called the Detail View. Between them is a narrow bar that can be dragged with the mouse to adjust the sizes of the views. In IDEAl mode you can also drag the side of the split window to change the width.

  • On top of each view there is a toolbar, the buttons in which will become activated when an element in this view is selected. This provides one way you can access the actions provided for that view element. The other are context menus which pop up on right mouse button click as will be discussed below.

  • In IDEAl mode there are two additional small buttons in the Automake Manager window titlebar left hand side – a triangular shaped right arrow, and a dot button. The arrow button is used to close the window. The dot button on the other hand will keep the window open even if another KDevelop window has been selected. (Otherwise the Automake Manager window will automatically close whenever another window gets the input focus.)

The Overall View Window

The overall view window contains a tree-list of all the directories in your project that contain program files, documentation or data. Each such directory contains a Makefile.am file and is known in Automake Manager as a subproject. There are three typical subprojects in a KDE-based project as shown in the above illustration:

  • src – source-code files for your application,

  • doc – your user manual or Handbook,

  • po – extracts of strings in your source-code files that require translation into other human languages (e.g. window titles, menu names, button labels, dialog box text and messages of various kinds).

Note that the doc subproject always has an en subproject, which you can see if you click on the + symbol next to the word doc. That is because the base language of all documentation in KDE is English (en). If your application becomes part of KDE, the KDE translation teams may translate your documentation from English into other languages and the translations will go into other subprojects, such as de (German) or fr (French). The strings in the po subproject may also be translated and stored in other files in po, thus allowing your application to be operated by people who do not know English.

Note

The doc and po subprojects serve different purposes. doc contains documentation like a user manual, po contains translatable text strings of the user interface which is integrated in the source code of this application.

The overall view window serves—amongst other things—as a navigation tool. If you select a subproject in the overall view window, the corresponding details will be shown in the detail view window.

The Detail View Window

The detail view contains a tree-list of all the files in the subproject currently selected in the overall view as well as the compilation, build and installation rules for this subproject. Thus the two views together can give you access to all the components of your application and all the information on how to compile, build and install it.

Targets. The tree-list in the detail view has two levels. The top level consists of so-called Automake Manager targets and the next level contains lists of files that go to make up each target.

This concept of an Automake Manager target differs somewhat from what a Makefile target usually is. In short:

  • The definition of how a set of files is to be compiled, built or installed is known as a target in Automake Manager, but as a variable in Automake itself.

  • A target in make is often something quite different, being the parameter of a make command (e.g. make install, make clean).

    However some Makefile.am variables do represent an underlying sub-target in make.

Navigating in the Automake Manager

In both the overall and the detail view you can left-click on the + or - next to a subproject or target name to expand or contract the tree view. If you do that with a subproject in the overall view, it shows or hides the subprojects at the next level down (if any). If you do it with a target in the detail view, it shows or hides the list of files that go into that target.

Opening a File for Edit.  If you left-click on a file name in the detail view, the corresponding file opens up in KDevelop's editing window.

Activating the Automake Manager Toolbar Buttons.  If you left-click on the name of a subproject in the overall view or target in the detail view, the name is highlighted and some toolbar buttons become active in the top part of that view.

Note

It is recommended that you use the right mouse-button and popup menus, rather than the toolbar buttons, because it is then much easier to see and understand what you are doing.

Operations on subprojects and targets have far-reaching effects on the structure, compilation, building and installation of your application.

Selecting Actions/Popup Menus.  If you right-click on the name of a subproject, target or file, a menu pops up and you can then select actions to perform on the subproject, target or file, such as add a target to the subproject, add a file to a target or logically remove the selected file from its target.

Popup Menus in the Automake Manager

The following sections explain in short terms which operations the menus make available which will pop up on right mouse button clicks in the Automake Manager window. They are meant for overall view only. You will find detailed descriptions of most operations in a later chapter.

The Popup Menu for a File

When you right-click on a file name in the detail view the following menu will pop up allowing you to select one of several operations to be performed on that file. In the illustration below the hi-16app-myapp.png icon file was selected from the Icon data in myapp target of the myapp/src subproject.

  • The main popup-menu item for a file is to Remove the file from its target (i.e. it will no longer be used to compile, build or install that target).

  • The CVS item offers a variety of CVS operations on the file.

  • The Open With item allows you to open the file with a variety of editors or with any application at all (e.g. you can open the icon file in our example with KIcon).

  • The Perforce item is used for similar operations as in CVS using the commercial “Perforce” version control system.

The Popup Menu for a Target

When you right-click on a target in the detail view the following menu will pop up allowing you to select one of several operations to be performed on it. In the illustration below the myapp (Program in bin) target of the myapp/src subproject was selected.

  • The Options item for a target only applies to source code files. In the corresponding dialog box you can specify linker flags and paths on which to locate libraries and you can give a list of actual libraries to be linked in to your application.

  • The Create New File item brings up a dialog in which you can set the file name and the type of file to be generated (from a drop-down list).

  • The Add Existing Files item brings up a dialog box in which you can add an already existing file to this target.

  • The Remove item for a target allows you to logically remove the target and all its files from the project structure.

  • The Make Target Active item only applies to targets containing source code files. New files will always be added to such an active target.

  • The Build Target item calls all necessary compile and make operations to build the code for this target only.

The Popup Menu for a Subproject

When you right-click on a subproject in the overall view window the following menu will pop up which allows you to make major changes to the structure of your project and the way it is compiled, built and installed. You can use it to expand or modify the basic project structure that the Application Wizard has created.

  • The Options item for a subproject controls the way that the subproject will be compiled, built and installed. The dialog box that pops up has tabs for Compiler, Includes, Prefixes and Build Order.

  • The Add Subproject item creates a new directory and skeleton Makefile.am file.

  • The Add Target item pops up a dialog in which you can set the rules for compiling, building or installing a group of files within your subproject.

  • Add Service (... to be written ...)

  • Add Application (... to be written ...)

  • Add Existing Subprojects (... to be written ...)

  • The Remove Subproject item in the popup menu for a subproject is the proper way to remove a subproject. It will adjust the Makefile.am files accordingly. You will also be offered the option to delete all the files (or links) in the corresponding subdirectory. Obviously, this feature should be used with caution.

  • The Build item calls all necessary compile and make operations to build the code for this subproject only.

  • Force Reedit (... to be written ...)

  • Clean (... to be written ...)

  • Install (... to be written ...)

  • Install (as root user) (... to be written ...)

Automake Projects
 

Automake Projects

(... to be written ...)

Autoconf

Figure 13.1. Effect of the Configure Script



Makefile.in into Makefile

prefix = @prefix@
INSTALL = @INSTALL@
build_triplet = @build@
CXX = @CXX@
prefix = /home/bernd/kde3
INSTALL = /usr/bin/ginstall -c -p
build_triplet = i686-pc-linux-gnu
CXX = g++

config.h.in into config.h

/* Define if you have libz */
#undef HAVE_LIBZ
/* The size of a `int', as computed by sizeof. */
#undef SIZEOF_INT
/* Define if you have libz */
#define HAVE_LIBZ 1
/* The size of a `int', as computed by sizeof. */
#define SIZEOF_INT 4

Automake

(... to be written ...)

KDevelop's Automake Manager

Figure 13.2. A screenshot of the automake manager



Building and Installing Libraries

  • -rpath

  • PIC

  • static

  • plugins: no-undefined

Custom Makefiles and Build Scripts
 

Custom Makefiles and Build Scripts

(... to be written ...)

Compiler Options
 

Compiler Options

(... to be written ...)

Make Options
 

Make Options

(... to be written ...)

Chapter 14. Advanced Project Management
 

Chapter 14. Advanced Project Management

Multiple Build Configurations

(... to be written ...)

Cross-Compiling
 

Cross-Compiling

When you have suitable cross compilers available, you can cross compile your programs for processors and operating systems different from the system where KDevelop and the compiler is running. The GNU compiler collection gcc can be configured and compiled as a cross compiler if you compile it yourself. Consult the GCC info pages for more information. Some Linux distributions also provide binary packages.

An automake based package can easily be cross-compiled by specifying the --host option to the configure script and setting the CC and CXX environment variables to the respective cross compiler binaries. Often you want to switch between a the cross-compiled version of your application and one compiled for your development system. For this, it is advantageous to use KDevelop capability of creating multiple build configurations, as explained in the section called “Multiple Build Configurations”. Once you have created a new build configuration for cross-compiling in the Project->Project Options... dialog, add the option

--host=platform

to the configure options. The platform name is a tuple of the form

cpu-vendor-os

or

cpu-vendor-kernel-os

For many combinations, you can use a short form, for instance i386-linux or arm-elf.

Qt/Embedded
 

Qt/Embedded

Qt/embedded is a version of the Qt™ library that does not use the X window system, but draws directly to the framebuffer on Linux systems. It is therefore interesting for embedded systems which have tight restrictions on the memory usage of the whole system. Its API is fully compatible with the one of the X11 version.

Developing an application for Qt/embedded with KDevelop is not very different from developing a program for the X11 version of Qt™. In fact, you can use the same codebase for both versions. If you use the autoproject project management, you switch to the embedded version by passing the argument --enable-embedded to the configure script. You can set this in the Project->Project Options... dialog under Configure Options. With the option --with-qt-dir=DIR you set the directory in which Qt/embedded is installed.

After configuring and compiling your application with these options, it will link with the libqpe.so library. This version of your application will not normally run when you use X11. In order to test it, run it under the control of the program qvfb (Qt Virtual Frame Buffer). This is done by starting qvfb and then starting your application with


app -qws -display QVFb:0

Naturally, when you have a working version of your application, you will want to use it on the target processor. For this, it will probably be convenient to create multiple build configurations, as explained above, so that you can quickly switch between the version running on your development system and the version running on the target system.

Applications for Qt/embedded normally run as single applications on the device they are designed for. Trolltech also supports Qtopia, which is a collection of applications for PIM, web browsing and various other areas that work together in a consistent manner. It is the standard environment for instance on the Sharp Zaurus. You can write applications that integrate into this environment by using the Qtopia SDK. This implies making your application class a subclass of QPEApplication and linking to the library libqpe.so. If you develop your application with the autoproject project management, you have to add --enable-qtopia to the configure options.

Chapter 15. The Debugger Interface
 

Chapter 15. The Debugger Interface

For C and C++, KDevelop contains an internal debugger that is directly integrated with the editor. Technically, it is implemented as a frontend that uses the portable GNU debugger gdb through a pipe. The debugger can be started in several ways:

  • With Debug->Start, the main program of your project is loaded into the debugger.

  • Using Debug->Start (other)->Examine core file you load a core file into memory, which is generated by the operating system kernel when the program has crashed (The generation of core files may be switched off on your system, see ulimit(1)). This is useful for a post-mortem analysis of a program.

  • With Debug->Start (other)->Attach to process you invoke the debugger on an already running program. You will be shown a process list where you can select the process which the debugger should take over.

  • Note that debugging is only possible if your project has been compiled with debugging information enabled. It can be activated in the Compiler options dialog. When this option is switched on, the compiler generates additional data which allows the debugger to associate file names and line numbers with addresses in the executable.

The debugger frontend offers several views “into” the process:

  • Variables.  This window lists the values of all local variables at the current execution point of the program. It covers the variables in the complete call stack, i.e. the function where the process was interrupted, the function that called this function, and so on up to main() function.

    Another branch in the variables contains watch variables. You can configure yourself which variables are shown here. Both local and global variables can be watched. You can add variables either by clicking on the Add button or pressing RETURN while the Watch item is selected. They can be removed again via the context menu.

  • Breakpoints.  (... to be written ...)

  • Frame Stack.  (... to be written ...)

  • Disassemble.  (... to be written ...)

Setting Breakpoints

(... to be written ...)

Options
 

Options

Display Mangled Names.  In C++, function names in the executable are “mangled”, i.e. the function names include information about the argument types. This is necessary in order to support overloading of functions. The mangling algorithm is not standardized and differs even between different versions of the GNU C++ compiler.

In the disassembling window, normally unmangled names are displayed, so function signatures appear in the similar way as in the source code, so they are easily readable. Alternatively, you can decide to see mangled names.

Try Setting BPs on Lib Load.  The debugger backend gdb does not allow to set breakpoints within code that is not currently loaded. In a highly modular application, where often code is only loaded on demand as a plugin (using the libc function dlopen(3)), this can be inconvenient. Therefore, KDevelop rolls its own support for breakpoints in shared libraries. If you set this option, it allows you to set breakpoints in libraries which are not loaded. Then, whenever gdb notifies that a library is loaded, KDevelop tries to set the pending breakpoints.

Enable Floating Toolbar.  (... to be written ...)

Chapter 16. Using CVS
 

Chapter 16. Using CVS

CVS Basics

CVS is the revision control system which many open source projects - including KDE—are using. It stores all sources codes in a central place, called the repository. From the repository, developers can check out a current version of the project or snapshots of it at arbitrary points of time. In contrast to some other revision control systems, it is not necessary to lock files one wants to work on. So development can be highly parallelized.

Whenever a developer has finished a task, he commits his code (accompanied by a log message). CVS takes the job to merge the changes made by several developers. It can of course happen that developers work on the same piece of code, resulting in a conflicting set of changes (in practice this occurs seldom, and is often a sign of a lack of communication). In this case CVS rejects a commit; only after all conflicts are resolved, a file can be committed.

So far, this has been a description of the basic features of CVS one usually has to cope with. But CVS can provide a lot more: One can maintain several branches of a project (e. g. KDE 1.1.2 and KDE 2 were branches in KDE's development tree), merge changes from one branch to another, ask for differences between revisions, the revision history of files etc.

CVS is implemented as a client-server system. As a user, all communication with the repository goes through the command line program CVS. A higher level user interface is available through frontends like Cervisia (http://cervisia.sf.net) or TkCVS (http://tkcvs.sf.net). In KDevelop, only a small part of the CVS functionality which is important for your daily work can be used directly.

Basic knowledge of CVS usage is assumed. In particular, you should know how to checkout a given project from the repository. We recommend the book “Open Source Development With CVS” by Karl Fogel which is freely distributed (except for the non-technical chapters). See http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/cvsbook.html.

CVS Commands in KDevelop
 

CVS Commands in KDevelop

In the file views, the following context menu items are available:

  • Add to Repository. Prepares the marked file for addition to the repository. The file is transferred to the repository when you commit it (or the containing directory) the next time.

  • Remove from Repository.  Prepares a file for removal from the repository. This also deletes the file on the local file system, so use this feature with care!

  • Update.  Runs cvs update to merge any changes from other users into your working directory. When you use this menu item over a directory, the update normally happens recursively, except if you have disabled this in the configuration file .cvsrc.

  • Commit.  Runs cvs commit to upload any locally made changes to the repository. Note that you should update before doing this. Otherwise, when another user has committed his own changes before, CVS may give you an error message.

All these commands are invoked as subprocesses by KDevelop without any further command line options or environment variables. This may be a problem when the connection with the CVS server goes through a ssh connection and requires that you enter your password each time you commit or update. This is for instance necessary when your project is hosted on sourceforge.net. Workarounds for this problem are described on the CVS/SSH FAQ which you can find in the SourceForge documentation.

Behind the Scenes
 

Behind the Scenes

What CVS Records in the Working Directory

(... to be written ...)

Chapter 17. Leveraging External Programs
 

Chapter 17. Leveraging External Programs

Although KDevelop is a so-called “Integrated” development environment, it will never contain all features that you may want to use, and the capabilities of its editor will never suffice to perform often-used text processing tasks. As a genuine UNIX program, KDevelop contains several possibilities to start external programs, plugin external programs to work on files, or use external filters to process the content of the editor.

The most general and simple feature of this kind is the tool menu, which you can freely configure. This is done in the Settings->Configure KDevelop.... dialog under External tools.

Other tools will be discussed in the chapter Appendix C.

Chapter 18. Credits
 

Chapter 18. Credits

Contributions

Appendix A. Menus and Toolbars Survey
 

Appendix A. Menus and Toolbars Survey

(... to be written ...)

Appendix B. Shortcut Keys
 

Appendix B. Shortcut Keys

(... to be written ...)

Appendix C. Plugin Tools
 

Appendix C. Plugin Tools

KDevelop contains a large number of little tools that help you to perform certain task. Most of them are realized as plugins. This means, if you do not like one of them, you can simply disable it in the Project options dialog under Plugins (for project-wide plugins) or under Settings->Configure KDevelop.... Plugins which are switched off do not clutter your menus and are not loaded into memory.

  • The abbrev Plugin.  This plugin expands abbreviations into frequently used code snippets. It is activated by pressing Ctrl-Space. For example, when you enter "ife" into a C++ in the editor and press Ctrl-Space, you obtain an if-else code template and save some key strokes. The set of supported abbreviations depends on the programming language of the edited file. For example, for PHP you will obviously be interested in other code templates than for Java™.

    The set of code templates is configurable. You can see which ones are available in the Settings->Configure KDevelop... dialog under Abbreviations

  • The filter Plugin.  This offers two features. If you select Tools->Execute command, you can enter a shell command. The output of this command is inserted into the editor buffer when you hit the Start button.

    A related feature is available under Tools->Filter selection through command.... In order to use this, you must select a text area in the editor. If you now enter a shell command and hit the Start button, the command is started and the selection used as the standard input for it. The standard output of the command is then inserted into the editor.

  • The Doxygen Plugin.  This one helps you to use the Doxygen API documentation tool (http://www.doxygen.org). You can select Project->Run Doxygen to generate API documentation for your current project, based on the configuration given by the file Doxyfile in your project directory.

    Furthermore, you can configure Doxygen in the Project->Project options... dialog. This dialog is very similar to the doxywizard tool.

  • The ctags Plugin.  Although the class browser gives you extensive insight into the symbols and classes of your project, you may also want to use the ctags tool. In particular, this one supports a lot more language than the class browser.

    You activate this plugin under Tools->CTags.... When you start it the first time, you will be asked to generate a search database first. When you accept this, the ctags program will be started and will create a file named tags in your project directory. This is a text file containing all symbols of your source files.

    You can search in the symbol database in two ways: when the Regular expression match box is checked, the text you enter will be interpreted as a regular expression (POSIX flavor) and matched with the existing symbols. For example, the text .*Widget will search for all symbols ending with Widget. If the box is not checked, the search will be verbatim.

    When searching, you will get a list of the matched symbols, accompanied with the line numbers where they are defined. You jump to the respective point by clicking on the list.

    For some languages, ctags distinguishes different kinds of symbols. For example, Python has classes and functions. You can selectively search only for classes by checking the respecting kinds in the dialog.

    The symbol database is normally not updated when your sources change. Consequently, after a while the line numbers will not be correct anymore and newly added classes and functions will be missing. Therefore you should update the tags file in regular intervals by pressing the button Regenerate.

  • The astyle Plugin.  (... to be written ...)

  • The regexptest Plugin.  Designing with regular expressions can be hard work. Often the first try at an expression matches too many strings. In particular, when working with a compiled language, the turnaround times when debugging a regular expression can be awkward. The regexptest plugin allows you to directly explore the changes in a regular expression. It is activated by choosing Tools->Debug Regular Expression....

    In the flavor group box, you can choose the flavor of the regular expression engine used. Currently supported is the flavor defined in the POSIX standard, which is used by the grep program, and the extended POSIX syntax used by the program egrep.

    When you enter an expression, you get immediate feedback about any syntax errors in it. By entering a text under Test string, you can see whether the expression matches this string. In particular, if your regular expression includes groups, such as ([a-z]), the content of the matched subgroups will be shown in a list box.

  • The konsole Plugin.  (... to be written ...)

Survey

KDevelop offers extensible modules, or parts, to be loaded at runtime and on demand. This allows developers to only turn on features that they need or want for their development.

Some of the parts are considered global—that is, they effect the entire operation of KDevelop. For example, the uimode part allows a developer to select which user interface they wish to use.

Other parts are project specific, and are only utilized when a project of that type is loaded. The Automake Manager, for example, only needs to be active when an Automake based project is currently loaded. Otherwise, this part will not be active.

Active parts can have many effects on KDevelop. Depending on their function, they may add extra menus, extra menu items, extra tool buttons, etc.

Table C.1. Project Management Parts in KDevelop

antprojectANT Project Manager (Java™ applications)
autoprojectAutomake Project Manager
customprojectCustom Project Manager
trollprojectQMake based Project Manager

Table C.2. Global Parts in KDevelop

Part NameDescription
appwizardNew Project Wizard
history 
konsoleEmbedded Konsole
editor-chooserChooses an internal text editor
doctreeviewDocumentation Viewer
openwith 
fileselectorA file selection widget
uimodeCustomize the UI mode
texttoolsAdditional text tools
tipofdayA tip of the day
grepviewA graphical grep utility
cvsCVS Support
tools 
regexptestA regular expression tester
abbrevAbbreviation Expansion
filter 
valgrindA graphical valgrind frontend

Table C.3. Language Support Parts in KDevelop

cppsupportSupport for C/C++
fortransupportSupport for Fortran
javasupportSupport for Java™
perlsupportSupport for Perl
phpsupportSupport for PHP
pythonsupportSupport for Python

Table C.4. Project Specific Parts in KDevelop

astyle 
buglist 
classviewClassview Manager
ctags 
debuggerGNU Debugger Manager
diff 
distpart 
doxygen 
fileview 
javadebugger 
manager 
nedit 
outputviews 
perforce 
qeditor 
scripting 
scriptproject 
sourcenav 
svn 
visualboyadvance 
windowmenu 
Appendix D. KDevelop User Interface Mode Examples
 

Appendix D. KDevelop User Interface Mode Examples

IDEAl Mode

Click here to return to the modes survey.


Screenshot

KDevelop IDEAl mode


Click here to return to the modes survey.


Screenshot

KDevelop IDEAl mode, closed tabs


This example screenshot demonstrates one of the main virtues of IDEAl mode. There is a maximum workspace available. Yet any tool view is readily available by clicking on the according tab.

You will most probably need some time to get accustomed to the icons in the tab bar. If you got lost, just position the mouse over a tab and wait a few seconds. A short tool tip description will pop up. In this screenshot the “Automake Manager” tool tip is shown as an example. It describes the lower tab in the right tab bar.

Click here to return to the modes survey.

Child Frame Windows Mode
 

Child Frame Windows Mode

Click here to return to the modes survey.


Screenshot

KDevelop child frame windows mode


Click here to return to the modes survey.

Tabbed Pages Mode
 

Tabbed Pages Mode

Click here to return to the modes survey.


Screenshot

KDevelop tabbed pages mode


Click here to return to the modes survey.

Toplevel Windows Mode
 

Toplevel Windows Mode

Click here to return to the modes survey.


Screenshot

KDevelop toplevel windows mode


Click here to return to the modes survey.

Appendix E. Further Information
 

Appendix E. Further Information

Getting Information

(... to be written ...)

Reporting Bugs
 

Reporting Bugs

(... to be written ...)

Licensing
 

Licensing

This documentation is licensed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

This program is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Appendix F. Changes
 

Appendix F. Changes

Changes to This Document

  • 2003-01-03—Started this Changelog

Appendix G. Bibliography
 

Appendix G. Bibliography

(... to be written ...)

Bibliography

[] GNU Make Manual. Richard M. Stallman and Roland McGrath.

[] GNU Automake. David MacKenzie and Tom Tromey.

[] GNU Autoconf. David MacKenzie and Ben Elliston.

[] Using the GNU Compiler Collection. Richard M. Stallman.

[] GNU Libtool. Gordon Matzigkeit, Alexandre Oliva, Thomas Tanner, and Gary V. Vaughan.

[] GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool. 1st edition. October 2000. Gary V. Vaughan, Ben Elliston, Tom Tromey, and Ian Lance Taylor. New Riders Publishing. ISBN 1578701902.

[] Advanced Programming in the UNIX(R) Environment. 1st edition. June 1992. W. Richard Stevens. Addison-Wesley Pub Co. ISBN 0201563177.

[] Thinking in C++, Volume 1: Introduction to Standard C++. 2nd Edition. April 15, 2000. Bruce Eckel. Prentice Hall. ISBN 0139798099.

[] Open Source Development with CVS. 2nd Edition. October 12, 2001. Karl Fogel and Moshe Bar. The Coriolis Group. ISBN 158880173X.

[] Programming PHP. 1st edition. March 2002. Rasmus Lerdorf and Kevin Tatroe. O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 1565926102.

[] Programming Python. 2nd Edition. March 2001. Mark Lutz. O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 0596000855.

[] Gui Programming With Python : Using the Qt Toolkit. Bk&Cd-r edition. January 2002. Boudewijn Rempt. Opendocs Llc. ISBN 0970033044.

[] Programming Perl. The Camel book. 3rd Edition. July 2000. Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, and Jon Orwant. O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 0596000278.

[] Learning Perl. The Lama book. 3rd Edition. July 15, 2001. Randal L. Schwartz and Tom Phoenix. O'Reilly & Associates. ISBN 0596001320.

Index
 

Index

G

GNU
coding standard, Setting Up the Application
requirements, KDevelop Requirements
GUI, GUI Development
g++
requirements, KDevelop Requirements
gcc
requirements, KDevelop Requirements
graphical user interface, GUI Development

P

PATH, Preliminary Steps
PHP, PHP
new project, Select Programming Language and Application Type
Pascal
new project, Select Programming Language and Application Type
Perl, Perl
kdevelop.pm, Setting Up the Application
new project, Select Programming Language and Application Type, Setting Up the Application
requirements, KDevelop Requirements
Python, Python
new project, Select Programming Language and Application Type
path
new project, Provide General Information
plugins, Plugin Tools
preliminaries
KDevelop installation, Preliminary Steps
programming language, Select Programming Language and Application Type
programs
external, Leveraging External Programs
project
CVS, Supply Version System Information, Setting Up CVS
administration, Setting Up the Application
application framework, Setting Up the Application
application type, Select Programming Language and Application Type
author, Provide General Information
create new project
dialog, Initial Steps
directory, Provide General Information
documentation, Setting Up the Application
email, Provide General Information
framework, Setting Up the Application
initial build, Build the Initial Project Files
kdevelop.pm, Setting Up the Application
language, Select Programming Language and Application Type
license, Provide General Information, Setting Up the Application
main.cpp, Provide General Information
new, New Projects
build, Build the Initial Project Files, Behind the Scenes
programming language, Select Programming Language and Application Type
project file, Setting Up the Application
properties, Provide General Information
templates, Initial Steps, Setting Up the Application
edit, How to Edit the Templates
project management, Project Management Systems
projects
Java, ANT Projects (Java Projects)
ant, ANT Projects (Java Projects)
automake, Automake Projects
custom, Custom Projects
qmake, QMake Projects
properties, Provide General Information

N

name
application, Provide General Information
name mangling, The Debugger Interface
non-default directory, Non-default Installation Directory

Q

QTDIR, Preliminary Steps
Qt
requirements, KDevelop Requirements
Qt/Embedded, Qt/Embedded
Qtopia, Qt/Embedded
qmake
projects, QMake Projects

V

valgrind, KDevelop Requirements
version
CVS, Supply Version System Information
database, Supply Version System Information
version need
circumvent for autoconf/automake, KDevelop Requirements

W

warning
default build configuration, Build the Initial Project Files
watch variables, The Debugger Interface