Bobby,
I'd remind you that they (the CodeBlocks guys) have their own discussion forum,
and that's probably where you should take these issues. The folks who read
this forum generally want to focus on SDCC, and, while CodeBlocks may,
ultimately, serve their interests, it's not the primary purpose of THIS list.
I personally think it's OK to gripe about such things, since, if nobody
complains, everybody thinks it's "kewl", which seldom is the case. However,
THIS is not the place to gripe about THAT product.
regards,
Richard Erlacher
----- Original Message -----
From: Bobby Garner
To: sdcc-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Sdcc-user] documentation & open source generally
I just installed the current release of C::B v8.02. It does include a manual
which appears to be well designed. As I want to start a new project, I find
under "CodeBlocks Project Management", this encouraging statement: "CodeBlocks
offers a very flexible and comprehensive project management. The following text
will address only some of the features of the project management." "Only some"?
If the author knows of other features, why does he not at least list them, and
fill in the detail later?
Already there is a shadow of doubt creeping in. But proceeding to the next
page, it says: "The easiest way to create a new project is executing the
command 'File' /'Project' and selecting a wizard". Unfortunately, there is no
'Project' option on the file menu. There are only 'Recent Project' and 'Import
Project' both of which require an existing project. This is supposed to help me
start a new project, one which has no preexistence?
Going back to the Startup Page, there is a 'Create a new project' option
which brings up a dialog displaying a group of wizards including an 'Empty
project'. No SDCC project, and only one embedded microcontroller project wizard
for an AVR. Should I begin with the blank sheet, or start an AVR and modify it
for my 8051 derivative?
Going back to the manual, an index tab search for 'template' offers two
topics, Codesnippets and Source Code Exporter. Neither of these look right.
Back on the contents tab under C::B Project Management, there is a page titled
'Project Template'. It contains this paragraph:
"CodeBlocks is supplied with a variety of project templates which are
displayed when creating a new project. However, it is also possible to store
custom templates for collecting your own specifications for compiler switches,
the optimisation to be used, machine-specific switches etc. in templates. These
templates will be stored in the Documents and Settings\<user>\Application
Data\codeblocks\UserTemplates directory. If the templates are to be open to all
users, they have to be copied to a corresponding directory of the CodeBlocks
installation. These templates will then be displayed at the next startup of
CodeBlocks under 'New' /' Project' /'User templates'."
So thats where they moved the 'Project' menu item! Except there is no menu
called 'New', and I wouldn't expect there to be. There is a File/New/Project...
however, which produces the dialog with the Wizards.
I need a rest break before attempting to work through one of these wizards. I
just wanted to offer this actual experience for whatever it may be worth to
anyone considering a new manual for SDCC, because this is pretty typical of my
own experience with open source help systems. As Richard Erlacher has pointed
out, there is the appearance that the documentation author was unable to read
the code, misread the code, Or the coder changed the code without communicating
that fact to the documentation author.
The experience of others may vary, and so far there is no reason to suspect
that Code::Blocks doesn't work as advertised, and if it doesn't, the fault
would surely not lie with the program. And the documentation is probably right
too, somewhere and/or sometime. Maybe I just misread the advertisement.
Bobby
JBarbosa wrote:
Below is a link to the Code::Blocks site and some chunks of text from the
opening page.
I 'm working exclusively with Windows.
SDCC is called by means of a .bat file containing the command lines,
C::B allows us to set a tool to invoke that .bat and 'voila'!
If your PC has more than one core, they are used,
The site gives access to several foruns, one of them is dedicated to the
'nightly builds' that allows us to update C::B every day, simply by downloading
it and extract the files straight to the C::B directory and thats all.
http://www.codeblocks.org/
http://wiki.codeblocks.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
"The open source, cross platform, free C++ IDE."
a.. Windows 2000 / XP / Vista
b.. Linux (Ubuntu & Debian, 32 & 64 bits)
c.. Mac OS X 10.4+
Supported compilers
a.. GNU GCC (incl. G77) (Linux)
b.. MinGW GCC (incl. G77) (Win32)
c.. MSP430 GCC (Win32, Linux, BSD)
d.. TriCore GCC (Win32, Linux)
e.. PowerPC GCC (Win32, Linux)
f.. Apple GCC (Xcode) (Mac OS X)
g.. Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 (Win32)
h.. Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 (Win32)
i.. Borland's C++ Compiler 5.5 (Win32)
j.. DigitalMars C/C++ (Win32)
k.. OpenWatcom (Win32)
l.. Intel C++ compiler (Win32)
m.. Small Device C Compiler (SDCC)
n.. Digital Mars D (Win32, Linux)
o.. GDC D Compiler
Regards
Jose Barbosa
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