On 24 Sep 2009, at 19:02, Robert Caldecott wrote: > OK, I'm going to stick my oar in again. :) > > QMake certainly has its quirks and the more advanced functionality > isn't well documented, but it can do pretty much all I need - what I > am asking for is for QtCreator to hide all these quirks and weirdness > and allow me to set dependencies, execute pre-build/post-build steps, > etc. without being exposed to the QMake internals. At the end of the > day I really don't care what make system is under the hood. Take > Visual Studio (sorry but it's where me a lot of your target audience > is coming form) - I can set dependencies, add pre-build steps, > post-build steps, custom build rules, etc. without ever having to edit > .sln or .vcproj files by hand.
I've had to go and edit .sln and .vcproj files on several occasions when MSVC decided to corrupt my project, but regardless I _really_ like how I can see ALL my project settings inside a single, easy-to read text file instead of being hidden away in a multitude of dialogs, many of which are model and cannot be resized. I've spent countless hours going back and forth between MSVC's convoluted, poorly designed project dialogs trying to figure out why one configuration works while another doesn't. XCode isn't much better (although it has a filter box). I love that in Creator, all of that stuff is in one, nicely-color coded text file and that changes are applied as soon as I save. Less is most definitely more. Bravo! A contextual menu for adding variables and some more variety in .pro file templates would help (particularly some pre-rolled subdir projects and functions), but please don't hide the .pro file behind some GUI! That said pro.user files HAVE TO GO. At least in their current form. Project dependencies and compiler flags should be stored in the .pro like everything else. While I can appreciate the format was never intended for use in an IDE, it appears to support everything required .pro.user files cause me grief all the time; either the build settings get screwed up or Creator cannot find the executable it just built. General weirdness which is always solved by trashing those damn files. I'm always having to delete them which makes the ENTIRE 'project' pane and it's settings completely useless. > Sessions don't work in my world - let's say you have a project that > contains 3 exe's and 5 libs. A member of your team wants to work on a > project - are they seriously meant to check out a copy and then load > each .pro file by hand, setting dependencies using the Project > settings. etc. until their 'session' is up and running? Come on! > With a SUBDIRS project you just load up the master .pro file and bam! > All your sub-projects get dragged in. Ctrl+B and you're off and > running. Exactly. Sessions don't work. I really tried to work with them. From all the ideas I've used, MSVC's solution-based design is the most intuitive, productive and team-friendly. XCode is awful but for different reasons. Creator can't event compete with either as it stands. And pains me to say that because I'm always pushing creator to colleagues, but it's true. While I'm happy that Creator supports SUBDIRS in some fashion (not that it's documented anywhere and one requires a mastery of qmake to make it work), it needs to do more. Like treating individual projects as real sub projects of a solution rather than as aggregates. Why can't I build and run individual projects? qmake can do this. > > And what I also like about SUBDIRS/QMake is your command-line based > build system isn't much more complicated than: > > qmake master.pro > mingw32-make release > > Brilliant! > > So, whether QMake gets superseded or not is a moot point to me. I > want to get away from Visual Studio and QtCreator is a dream come true > - going that extra mile and adding some UI fluff for people like me > who don't want to edit .pro files and you cannot lose. Yes. Creator gets SO MANY THINGS RIGHT that such a major weakness in project management is hard to ignore. Everyone who tries to use Creator always asks the same thing - how do I make project solutions? How do I group files? Unless they spend hours trawling these lists to come up with their own manual ad-hoc solution which must be repeated for every project (as I did) they will come to the conclusion that Creator is a toy program (or as someone from Nokia actually stated on here) an 'editor' rather than an IDE. Common Nokia the tools (appear) to be there to achieve this. Please fix this. > > 2009/9/24 Oswald Buddenhagen <[email protected]>: >> On Thu, Sep 24, 2009 at 11:15:42AM -0500, Coda Highland wrote: >>> That said, you tempt me. Oh, you tempt me. :P >>> >> have fun. ;) >> >>> I'd still like to see the replacement tool be as easy to use and >>> extend as qmake; cmake is a serious pain but the KDE zealots are >>> so... >>> zealous. :P >>> >> that's an interesting statement for me. because i made the exact >> opposite experience - just have a look at the pro files in >> creator/share/* . >> but then, maybe that's because i'm a kde zealot. ;) >> (and no, i don't like cmake files - they look arcane). >> >>> I'm sad to hear that the Trolls themselves don't like qmake. >>> >> not all of them. actually, there are only two rather small groups who >> seriously dislike it: those who have to use it for serious stuff and >> those who maintain it. ok, so by all practical means, that's the same >> group. :D >> but there is a reason why it hasn't been documented through all these >> years ... >> >>> I've been defending it for years because it really IS one of the >>> best >>> tools out there for the typical project. >>> >> well, as far as i'm concerned, that's not exactly a reassuring >> verdict >> regarding the build tool landscape as a whole. which we happen to >> agree >> with ... :} >> _______________________________________________ >> Qt-creator mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.trolltech.com/mailman/listinfo/qt-creator >> > _______________________________________________ > Qt-creator mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.trolltech.com/mailman/listinfo/qt-creator _______________________________________________ Qt-creator mailing list [email protected] http://lists.trolltech.com/mailman/listinfo/qt-creator
