Judging by the chatter on the Anjuta development mailing list the next version should be pretty nice. Maybe even some better source file management.

If you hate the complications of autotools and the unfortunate bugginess of KDevelop then I highly recommend trying Eclipse with the CDT. Support for C++ isn't quite as good as for Java yet but it does support some critical features that KDevelop doesn't. Its code completion is adequate (much better than KDevelop but not quite VS), it has basic refactoring tools (most importantly "rename") and it optionally manages (pure) make files for you. It does take 15 minutes to learn and startup is slow.

My main problem with Eclipse has been that using third-party shared libraries like SDL is somewhat difficult. The IDE seems to be designed so that external libraries should be copied to the project's workspace. Granted there may be something that I'm just not aware of.

Quote: Original post by 255
My main problem with Eclipse has been that using third-party shared libraries like SDL is somewhat difficult. The IDE seems to be designed so that external libraries should be copied to the project's workspace. Granted there may be something that I'm just not aware of.

That's odd... However, it really sounds like the compiler may not be setup correctly. If you're not already doing it, make sure you add the -I and -L flags (can be set in Eclipse's build options) with the correct directories to be sent to the compiler. For example, it would look something like this:

gcc -I"/path/to/headers" -L"/path/to/libs" test.cpp -lSDL

What you can do is, run 'sdl-config --cflags --libs" and make note of the output. Then just put in all the info in their appropriate options in Eclipse.

If you're already doing this then I'm sorry I can't be of more help. I've gotten this to work in both Linux and Windows/MinGW/MSYS flawlessly.

Nice thread, I'll have to try some of these options!

I just started using gEdit and raw autotools because I got so annoyed at trying to use KDevelop's automake manager =/ Once you get it all set up the first time and make some automation sh scripts, it's not that bad, actually...

Thanks to everyone who gave their input on this topic. I'm so happy right now because I had Eclipse on my computer all along. After downloading the CDT plugin and fiddling around for a little bit, I was able to compile my SDL programs really easily.

What makes me so happy is that I no longer need to Windows for my programing. It feels really great.

Anyone who is still looking for an alternative to IDEs using automake should check out Eclipse, it's free and it's a smaller download than BorlandX. It is a bit slow to start up that's the only negative thing I have found so far.

I like KDevelop. Well, what I really like is the reference doc browser that is built in, and the amount of project templates it has, etc. It gives ugly output, but you can easily make your own make files for code written in kdevelop.

Quote: Original post by Arkainium
What you can do is, run 'sdl-config --cflags --libs" and make note of the output. Then just put in all the info in their appropriate options in Eclipse.

Yes, now I remember the exact problem. If I try to enter `sdl-config (something)` into the compiler/linker flags field it tends to change the order of the words so that any command with a space in it will be messed up. Because I wanted my program to compile on as many unix systems as possible, I wasn't very enthusiastic about using a constant path.

For my next project I'll probably use Eclipse with custom Makefiles and a custom configure script that sets some environment variables or writes a config file.

IMHO if you want your program to be compiled by others, you do them a favor by using automake or writing a good configure script. One thing I appreciate very much is the ability to set an install prefix when running configure. It also allows users to set their optimization/debug/platform/crosscompile flags much more easily.

Quote: Original post by darookie
Have you tried MinGW Studio? I use it for all my Linux SDL programming and it's a great IDE.

Wow. I just downloaded this and compiled a simple gtk+ app with it. This IDE is excellent! rate++ to you, sir!

Say, MinGWDS does look pretty nice. It looks like it uses Scintilla. Ooooh, it's sure be nice to use a scintilla base editor in windows (besides scite of course)! How good is the source file management? Does it do source subdirectories? Virtual directories? Any kind of autocomplete or intellisense-style stuff?

I would look and see for myself but I'm supposed to be studying...

Quote: Original post by BradDaBug
Say, MinGWDS does look pretty nice. It looks like it uses Scintilla. Ooooh, it's sure be nice to use a scintilla base editor in windows (besides scite of course)! How good is the source file management? Does it do source subdirectories? Virtual directories? Any kind of autocomplete or intellisense-style stuff?

I would look and see for myself but I'm supposed to be studying...

Here are some screenies of the linux version (all clickable):







I've only been playing with it for 20-30 minutes. It's a very simple IDE with a really really awesome Makefile exporter. I'm not sure what you mean by a virtual directory, so I can't answer that question. Sorry =(

Edit: fixed clicky