KDevelop 3.0 (Gideon) Alpha 4 is Out

The KDevelop team announces the availablility of KDevelop 3.0 Alpha 4a (yes, 4a). In the more than 3 months since the last release, many new features have been added, bugs have been squashed, and existing features have been refined and polished. Downloads are available via the KDE mirrors. Direct links to packages can be found at the KDevelop download page.

Since the third alpha release, the developers have been extremely busy. Some of the noted improvements are:

  • New File Creation Interface, standardized across all of KDevelop
  • New Search/Replace Part for multiple files, including regexps
  • New Application Templates - kdehello, javahello, qtopia, fortran
  • Make Output View verbosity configuration
  • Added Fortran, Ruby, and tmake Project Support
  • New Class Wizard added features (inc. Make Member support)
  • Better documentation browsing, XML support
  • Rewritten Classparser code -- faster and more compact
  • DCOP interface for FilterParts and CppParts - can trigger events via DCOP
  • Most non C++ (Perl, PHP, Java, etc.) project managers improved
  • Vastly improved Integrated Doxygen Support
  • Debugger integration improved
  • Numerous bug fixes (debugger, IDEAl mode layouts, crashes)

And, the development doesn't stop here! Look soon for better persistent class store support, and smarter code completion -- already in CVS!

Your feedback is welcome.
The developers would love your feedback, from positive comments to concerns and wishlist items. Messages in this forum, to our mailing list or on irc.kde.org, channel #kdevelop, are all appreciated!

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Comments

by ian reinhart geiser (not verified)

Perl, Python, C++, Java, etc... This IDE is really getting powerful. Templates to do almost anything in KDE and flexible enough to add whats missing.

Last night in 3 hours I added support for editing Bash Shell scripts. Complete with a function browser, code folding and syntax highlighting via KTextEditor.

In short people KDevelop 3.0 will be the IDE for Unix :)

Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by KDE User (not verified)

Nice! Oblig: What theme are you using? Those fonts are very blocky!

by fault (not verified)

> What theme are you using? Those fonts are very blocky!

let me guess :)

The Window Decoration looks like the new glow from cvs.
The Widget style looks like qnix.
The font....looks somewhat like Chicago from the old MacOS.. but it's not.. looks like a derivative :)

by Derek Kite (not verified)

And bash. Cool.

Derek

by Richard Hendershot (not verified)

I know this is old news but I just want to add my thanks for the bash features :)

by panzi (not verified)

could you provide a plugin to add bsh support? would be great! maybe it will be included in the official project!?

by ian reinhart geiser (not verified)

hrm.. what is bsh? I only know bash so that is all I will ever support, but its simple to add more plugins if you wish.
Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by panzi (not verified)

hups, did i miss the 'a' button?

by ian reinhart geiser (not verified)

um, i must be confused, bash shell support is in CVS and will be a part of KDevelop 3.0.
Is this what you want?
Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by panzi (not verified)

Well what kdevelop-bash.png shows is exactly what i want! :)

btw: "ian reinhart geiser"? Sprichst Du Deutsch? Muss ich mich nicht mit Englisch abquählen! ;)

PS (@all who know the answer):
When will be 3.0 final anaunced? I couldn't find any planed releasedate on the website. I must not be a very exact date, only 2003 Q4 or so.

by Mike Hearn (not verified)

Wow, cool. I was just about to post asking if it had bash support .... I might check this out, for autopackage presently I use xemacs, which is really nice, but a proper IDE might be good also.

I'll have to find out if this alpha has any wierd dependancies on CVS KDE or anything, plus I need to get a bigger harddisk, i don't have enough space for kde presently.

by Caleb Tennis (not verified)

Most of us run it from KDE 3.1, and some still run it on KDE 3.0. Works like a champ.

by martian (not verified)

Works okay under fluxbox for me

by Navindra Umanee (not verified)

Your mail address [email protected] keeps bouncing... feel free to look into it or turn off the "Notify" option when you post. :-)

by ian reinhart geiser (not verified)

Sorry Im scheduled to take a typing class in the summer. Ideally that may help the situation ;)

Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by Mike (not verified)

> Sorry Im scheduled to take a typing class in
> the summer. Ideally that may help the situation ;)

So KTouch isn't good enough for you?!?

by fp! (not verified)

thanks Derek!

by Anonymous (not verified)

You read the story, yes?

by Mario (not verified)

Because so many CVS-Digests were posted by Derek, he was pretending its a habbit.

by Mario (not verified)

Kdevelop is perhaps the MOST critical application for Linux's long term success. It is currently the best, most fexible, customizable and comprehensive open source IDE available for Linux today.

Why is this marvellous piece of engineering so important for Linux's future? For the same reason most peope no longer program in lowlevel languages, and instead choose Java and C++. Work can be done faster, with fewer bugs, and an easiet to maintain codbase. In effect, the better tools create better applications in approximately the same time. If there was to be such a gap between linux's development tools and the tools of other OSs we would more than make up for our smaller development team, by letting them be much more productive.

As the development tools will become more refined so will the applications, the rate of progress and eventually Linux's popularity. One of Linux's highest priorities is to have the best development enviroment/framework available, getting this set up will expotentially increase the number of developers and the quality applications available and so will the demand. Kdevelop needs to be even better than MS's latest and greatest without the lock-in of course.

There already are some very nice tools, for example

KDevelop
Cervisia
Kbugbuster
Kompare
Kate
Umbrello
QtDesigner
Qt Linguist
Kdbg
QSA (scripting toolkit, not yet released)
GLADE
Kylix

and many more. but, most of these applications are not better than equivalents on other platforms or have a les suser friendly interface.

In my firm opinion improving Linux's tools will create a much stronger foundation and produce better applications faster. Just like it would not be wiseto do most of your development on a 300 MGZ computer and upgrade to a 2 GHZ computer after you've already finished most of your work, it is not wise for Linux to have such heavy work going into other applications before the tools are "upgraded". Kdevelop needs a larger team, even though its current team has already shown to be very talented and has done an amazing large of work on Kdevelop, which often teams quite as big probably would not achieve in the same time frame. Still, to effectively have the best tools for any platform quicker Kdevelop should have a team at least as big as Konqueror's. Other development projects like GCC, the ons mentioned above, etc. should also get a far bigger team.

Thanks for listening, I really hope I did not upset anyone. This is just my opinion from quite a lot of research. Thanks for reading it.

by me (not verified)

> needs a larger team

Thanks for providing the people and/or you helping out...

by Hakenuk (not verified)

However, one problem is that the tool may be not "that easy", too feature bloathed for beginners. Is there a "Learning C++ with KDevelop" Guide? No!

You want to write an easy application, say "hello world", and --hmm, why are there so many files generated by the wizard?

What Linux really needs is a programming tool like (in back in 1991) TP 6.0 and its easy IDE. (Today there is of course rhide, a IDE clone) Or VisualBasic 6.

The second tool is targeted, progress has been made:
http://hbasic.sf.net
http://gambas.sf.net

Future Kdevelop for instance :
- integration with other tools
- improved documentation
- more languages
- SF access/automatic website/automatic announcements
- bugzilla integration

by Caleb Tennis (not verified)

There will be better documentation coming this summer. Look for a published book on KDevelop within a year.

by Datschge (not verified)

Cool, I'm already looking forward to reading it. =)

by Robert (not verified)

"Look for a published book on KDevelop within a year."

This is great news!!! I will buy it immediately after it becomes available!

Thanks also for adding Fortran support. Some of us number-crunching dinosaurs still use it! :-)

IMHO, KDevelop is the killer-app (or one of them, anyway) for KDE and Linux.

-Robert

by Steve (not verified)

Just a thought - one could write a tutorial style "Learn C++"
book, and bundle it with KDevelop + Knoppix, so students could
even run it on systems (e.g. school labs?) without Linux installed :-)

by ian reinhart geiser (not verified)

There is no wizard to magicly make you know how to program. While VB may be an easy to learn language, it really is no harder than PHP, python or C++.

What are have provided here is a powerful tool to develop code, if you need a click and drop language Id suggest LabView, but even then you will need some sort of programming skill..

In short Id suggest you avoid programming as much as possible because if you cannot learn something as simple as python or bash then you this is not for you.

Cheers
-ian reinhart geiser

by Morty (not verified)

Or if you don't like LabView try VEEPro (formerly known as HP VEE) from Agilent. VEE Pro has the same scope as LabView, but the instrumentation/automation part has a less dominant role in the IDE. It has a slightly more generalpurpose feel. It's sometimes nice to draw programs :-)

by Jens (not verified)

You will find that LabVIEW and HP VEE are two very different programming languages. HP VEE is works like a visual "c" like language, almost Schneidermann in a way.

LabVIEW is built for DAQ and is highly advanced for many things. It is not just drawing a program. You can do advanced stuff in little time. I did a quick IRC client (with finger service) in less than 2 hours :-)

LabVIEW is available for all platforms. The user interface is just a bit "ugly" if you don´t know how to work around it.

My experience? I have been programming both languages and there is more than "drawing" to both of them. We dumped HP VEE in the company because of lack of support and got into LabVIEW. No regrets there!

by Willi Korel (not verified)

Hi Jens,

you dumped the wrong product. Lab View is by far more complicated
to use than VEE.

by Caleb Tennis (not verified)

I agree, somewhat - it may be a bit difficult for beginners. The idea here is that we're attempting to provide an IDE that encompasses what many different types of projects need. If you're going to write a simple "hello world" app, KDevelop is probably much more sophisticated than what you need. Similiarly, if I wanted to write a 5 line text file, I probably don't need KWord.
Instead, we are attempting to give a tool that allows the management of various unix project languages of varying complexities. Since everyone seems to have different coding styles, different directory layout preferences, and different interface needs, it's a far from trivial task.
Luckily, all of the parts you mentioned are relatively simple to add to KDevelop, thanks to the plugin nature of the addons. All it takes is for someone to write them.

by Ruediger Knoerig (not verified)

Not necessary. Look at the Qt documentation / Qt designer doc. Libs and tool are
very powerful, but you can get it quickly when working through the tutorial.
I think that the Qt doc is what KDevelop/kdelibs needs too, integrated in KDevelop itself (via the KDE help system).

by Anonymous (not verified)

> It is currently the best, most fexible, customizable and comprehensive open source IDE available for Linux today.

You don't know Eclipse, or?

by Caleb Tennis (not verified)

I've never used Eclipse, but from what I can tell it's mostly Java based, and it seems like it's really nebulus. But it's got some good corporate sponsors, so its development is probably very mature.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Sure Eclipse has its roots in Java. But http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/ exists and they plan e.g. refactoring support for C++ in 2003.

by nac (not verified)

And when do they plan to finally add support for working autocompletion and intellisense-like features for the C++ part?

(wasn't that going to be added 2 years ago?)

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

After that long list of tools and the long essay on what will make a difference it only seems right to thump a little. Quanta+ may only be a web tool but it's a very good one and progressing quickly. Web developers are an early adopter audience so Quanta can be very significant to Linux/KDE if a number of web developers choose to adopt it. Additionally Kommander may mot be a full blown application tool but it is a great user tool to extend development. In the end applications are useless unless you can customize them to do what you want. Kommander brings universal end user customization which is the next killer app. One should not assume a purely traditional approach can be universally successful.

One last thing... I'm not speaking from a hypothetical standpoint and saying "this program needs these resources". I'm actively working on the program. All the expositing in the world doesn't write a single line of code. If there's one thing cool about KDE it's that most core developers are too busy coding to pontificate. What can *you* do?

by teatime (not verified)

I just thought it interesting to point out that Andras Mantia uses Gideon for his Quanta+ development. :)

by Eric Laffoon (not verified)

> I just thought it interesting to point out that Andras Mantia uses Gideon for his Quanta+ development. :)

We all do. As of about a month ago it's the default IDE for Quanta development and it does some things a lot better than the 2X version like not being so dependent on it's own internal information. We used to have more issues with makefiles and what 2x would over write if you just wanted to do a quick edit just to name one factor.

However the more serious point is that while good tools like Gideon make a big difference in delivering applications, and it is a really good tool, there are a very small fraction of any total user base that will develop applications. Also there are lots of features in professional tools that Gideon does not yet outshine. What makes it appealing is the total package, the great API for KDE and the potential of the tool.

The thing is that the traditional argument of good tools producing a better app and garnering market share can be seen to be lacking by looking at Mozilla vs IE. Applications have to dramatically transcend conventional design thinking and offer a lot more as well as be widely used to make a difference in broad platform acceptance. That is my point, that Quanta can reach more early adopters in a more compelling way... not to take anything away from how good Gideon is. That was my contention with the other post. Just better than before and more stable is not as compelling as "If you want this feature set you need to be running KDE" which is our year end target for Quanta+.

by Andras Mantia (not verified)

Sure I do! I think it's the best IDE for Linux, and quickly becoming the best IDE I've ever seen.
Yeah, it's complex and highly configurable, and there are tons of features I don't use, but I don't think it's confusing. I find it easy to use (ok, I'm not a newbie, but with a good tutorial, book, it should be easy also for newbies).
The only "problem" with it is that it's software under development and to get the best out of it, you need to update from CVS from time to time. Or you have to fix the bugs yourself. ;-)
Anyway, thanks for the developers and those who contributed to KDevelop. If I would have more lives (or more a day would contain more than 24 hours), I think would be also a KDevelop developer. :-) But Quanta+ has the priority and expect more from it. Altough it was not present in the last CVS digest, the autocompletion was improved, it more customizable and works also for PHP classes (enter "new " and the possible class names will appear). And
CSS autocompletion is close to be ready.

Andras

by Ras (not verified)

I've been developed rather complex applications in Windows before but
since I've switched to KDE / Linux I had to stop it for a while. Though
I have a lot of ideas for useful things I want to write it all comes down
to the problem that I'm not able to insert some menu items. I asked
the question multiple times in the Kdevelop forum but noone was
able to help me. Without a proper menu you can forget app development
at least on a professional level as I want a toolbar and menubar like
all other standard KDE apps. I've read all the documentation I could find
on the internet about XML menus and stuff but to no avail. I'm repeating
my question here because this really keeps from writing apps for KDE.
So my question is:

The default KDE framework application in Gideon contains
the following llines of source code:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// this doesn't do anything useful. it's just here to illustrate
// how to insert a custom menu and menu item
KAction *custom = new KAction(i18n("Cus&tom Menuitem"), 0,
this, SLOT(optionsPreferences()),
actionCollection(), "custom_action")
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

However when I run the sample application this menu item is not
shown even though an XML file demoui.rc seems to exist. Ok, it says
"Doesnt do anything useful", but what is necessary so that it _does_
anything useful i.e. to make this item really appear in the menubar / toolbar?
I already tried calling createGUI with the rc file as parameter
and I tried to call custom->plug(menuBar()); but to no avail.
Perhaps it something simple but I have tried for quite some time and haven't
figured it out yet.

by Caleb Tennis (not verified)

Did you install the application (make install) into a the kde directory structure? If not, you'll need to update your kde settings to point to this project directory so the XMLGUI stuff knows where to find the .rc file.

Try running "make install" and see if this problems goes away.

by Mario (not verified)

I was not aware of Eclipse, it may be better or worse, I do not know. I was calling it the best out of what I've tried. I will give Eclipse a shot sometime too.

And me,

"> needs a larger team

Thanks for providing the people and/or you helping out...
"

Actually, I just started learning C++ now. I'm only on chapter 2 of the "C++ How To Program" book, but once I am proficent in C++. I plan on learning Qt 4.x too (by than it will be out) and using my skills to help OSS projects like Kdevelop.

I also know that a very complex IDE may be too daunting for beginners, even thouugh I am comfortable with Kdevelop 2.1.5, that's why maybe there should be a "Beginner or Learning Mode" and "Advanced" mode. This would ease the learning curve signficantly, taking it one step at a time.

I also agree that KDevelop will need better documentation and its website should also be updated, there is very old information on it, which is no longer valid in some areas. IMO, it should adopt the KDE.org design like Konqueror. The new color-scheme is already a nice touch.

by Mario (not verified)

Eclipse seems to be really good from what I've read, and it also has some nice tools like the CVS Diff tool, which I have not seen integrated well into Kdevelop. Here is some info about it here too: http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=2036&offset=0&rows=15 ( old new sitem, but info still true)

Anyway, I have not actually tried it yet, but it sounds good and I'm sure their team and the Kdevelop team can learn a lot from both projects.

Its nice to see more quality IDE's like Kdevelop, Eclipse and Anjuta (not quite that good yet, but is improving) on linux.

Thanks for pointing it out to me.

BTW: This is OT, but is there any chance Kdevelop's website might mighrate to PHP Nuke 6.5 or 7 when its released. It would help its popularity a lot, much more interactive and PHPBB are soo much better than the current forums. I have a friend which I think might know how to set up PHP nuke for you too. But, I'm not sure, he could set up Ikonboard forums though/.

by Anonymous (not verified)

Also see http://download.eclipse.org/downloads/drops/R-2.1-200303272130/whats-new... for a nice overview and screenshots of new features in Eclipse 2.1.

by Datschge (not verified)

How comes these comments are here and not one tree further above?

by Ras (not verified)

Thanks a lot!!!!! Finally it works. At least I can make simple apps right now.
Still I have to figure out how to put my menu item in the toolbar too
but I hope I can find that out alone after some more trying... ;-)

by Aaron J. Seigo (not verified)

you need an item in your ui.rc file for "custom_action" (and any other custom actions you want to show up) and you need to create all the actions before you call createGUI() ... your ui.rc file also has to be somewhere the app can find it, which usually means doing a make install or passing a hardcoded a path to the file to createGUI. if you use any standard actions (e.g. KStdAction::open(..) for File->Open), they'll appear automatically in the right place(s) once you call createGUI, assuming you haven't overriden the merging in your ui.rc file...

the best way i can recommend to figure this stuff out is to visit the XMLUI Howto on developer.kde.org (http://developer.kde.org/documentation/tutorials/xmlui/preface.html) and then take a look at some of the ui.rc files for other KDE programs.. it's pretty simple once you've looked at a couple of examples.

by nic (not verified)

I generally do this:

#ifdef DEBUG
createGUI("~/comp/progdir/src/progui.rc");
#else
createGUI("progui.rc");
#endif

Out of interest, does anyone know a function that returns the directory of the running executable in order to avoid having to hardcode the path?

by rjw (not verified)

man 3 getcwd