KDE Development on Windows

Wed Apr 2 08:07:22 UTC 2014

Well, you post it as a rant, but I have to agree... The big problem is 
that KDE4 is both a platform and a development framework, and the two 
are mixed together.

For Krita, I've stopped using the emerge system to get the dependencies,
because it's just too fragile. It's wonderful if you want to setup a 
system with more than one kde application, but it didn't work for me for 
creatinga single, standalone application that I could package and 
distribute.

I'm now using a cmake project with a bunch of externals. However, building 
all the dependencies takes ages, too, so for my co-workers, I just share 
my dev env with them, binary. I am building with msvc 2012, so there is no 
pre-built Qt and there is no webkit. Oh, and update-mime-database doesn't 
build correctly, so I need a pre-prepared mime directory to package. I 
still haven't managed to strip down the oxygen icon set, either, and 
that's the biggest part of the download.

I am using a stripped-down kdelibs without dbus, kded, soprano -- and I 
probably should cut out attica and so on as well. Part of this will be 
solved by kf5, but since kxmlgui still needs dbus, part of it won't, if I 
continue to use kxmlgui. Feel free to clone and hack: 
http://quickgit.kde.org/?p=clones%2Fkdelibs%2Frempt%2Fkdelibs-stripped.git

Note that I've hardcoded this kdelibs to store settings in 
AppData\Local|Roaming\krita, not .kde, but still there is one or two 
things in kde that seems hardcode to .kde.

Also, no dbus means no kioslaves.

Sysoca is pretty much the biggest bug-bear of my life on Windows. Because 
krita/calligra actually uses the plugin query language in a lot of places, 
I cannot replace it with simply loading all local plugins. If you, for 
kmymoney, would just move to the Qt plugin system instead of the KDE one, 
you probably would be fine and save a lot of aggravation.

My current dev setup is like this:

c:\dev\desktop32
c:\dev\desktop64
c:\dev\desktop32_d
c:\dev\desktop64_d

i.e., base development directories for 32 and 64 bits builds, 
relwithdebinfo and debug.

Inside, I have an i directory where I install everything, and my source 
tree, build directories and so on.

Because I've hacked kbuildsycoca and krita's main to look for paths 
relative to the exe, instead of environment variables, all these 
installations run locally, without setting any environment and without 
sharing anything.

On Wed, 2 Apr 2014, Chris wrote:

> <rant>
> As a developer who is trying to compile and then improve kmymoney on windows 
> I must say it is the most painful process.
>
> If you want portability for KDE apps you need to uncouple applications from a 
> lot of the hardcore KDE stuff. Just creating a suitable environment for 
> building kmymoney has proved exhausting to the point of wanting to give up. 
> Is it really worth the agro?
>
> I gave up two years ago and I am close to doing so again. What would help is 
> a way of isolating those libraries that are absolutely necessary AND make it 
> possible to have both a release copy of an application and a dev copy running 
> on the same machine. Currently the plugin architecture forbids it without 
> some serious acrobatics. Why the plugin system can't load a plugin that is in 
> the same directory as the application I do not know. Thats the way dll's are 
> loaded. App directory first, shared folders last. Why do I even need ksycoca4 
> I'll never know. Are you really trying to emulate windows registry? one of 
> the worst inventions like ahh ever.
>
> Now I have to get back to the build process it appears a library that I was 
> able to build last week cant be built this week. seems it cant find a header 
> file... sighhhh....
>
> Oh and keep moving things to git that's is definately a major improvement.
>
> Did you hear subversion is moving to git.... No wait 1st of April ;)
>
> Chris
> </rant>
>
> On 2/04/2014 6:23 AM, Boudewijn Rempt wrote:
>> On Tue, 1 Apr 2014, Jaroslaw Staniek wrote:
>> 
>>> On 1 April 2014 20:31, Doug <dmcgarrett at optonline.net> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> In my experience, there are very few KDE programs that work in Windows. I
>>>> think the only ones I have are Dolphin, Find Files, and Kate, and I 
>>>> think,
>>>> Solitaire.
>>> 
>>> Maybe but I think it's not a technical barrier but missing apps need
>>> dedicated mainainers for Windows.
>>> 
>> 
>> Well, krita, too, but most windows users don't see the KDE part... Except 
>> in the about box, of course. There were technical barriers though, like 
>> stripping out dbus, kded, running kbuildsycoca4 after install. Other 
>> barriers still exist, like translations not working (except, weirdly 
>> enough, for the choose-language dialog box).
>> 
>> Boud
>> _______________________________________________
>> Kde-windows mailing list
>> Kde-windows at kde.org
>> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-windows
>> 
>> 
>
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