Reflexions about the notion of Project in Gideon

[Daniel Tourde]

Hello again,

I have been thinking about the answers you gave me and I have new
comments/questions...

> >1) Projects:
> >- To generate a Fortran Project seems to work fine. The only thing
> >missing is a Fortran template file (Few comment lines in Fortran
> >referring to the author of the project as well as the GPL licence (cf
> >C++ template files))
> >
> You can edit the templates, and store then with your project.
> So you can do your own special templates, with all the things you need 
> and then reuse them.

Are you planning to add a standard template as the one present for C or
C++? I know very well that it is possible to write his own to be used
all over the project but, just to polish the fortran mode, isn't it
possible to add a "standard" one ?

 
> >- There is no function to delete a complete Project in Gideon. I had to
> >use a terminal to do it. I think this is a missing function, probably
> >very simple to add.
> >
> This one is for Roberto ;)

There is an important point about the notion of project to
create/open/close. I will get back to this later on in my email.

 
> >- To open a project: When I use the menu "open project", I need to find
> >the xxx.kdevelop file by myself, by digging into the project directory.
> >This is something that caused me troubles. At the beginning I thought
> >that to specify the project's directory was sufficient, that Gideon
> >would by itself look inside the directory to find the file it was
> >needing.
> >
> It can not do that, what if you had more than one .kdevelop file in the 
> directory, which one would it choose?
> The solution is that you have to do it by hand. Besides that if you had 
> a look at the dialog you
>  would see that in the file filter, tha dialog is looking for *.kdevelop 
> files and not directories.
> The interface man-machine is correct and explict.

Here I think there is an important point: The difference between a
project and a project description file (In my view, the .kdevelop file).

When I create a new project, a window appears where I have to specify:
- The project language
- The application name
- The project location
- The author
- The version
What happened then is that in the location directory, a new directory is
created. The name of the directory is the application name and a
.kdevelop file is created in this directory, this file having too the
name of the application.

After having created the project I have in my mind the notion of
"application name" and "location". Absolutely not the notion of
.kdevelop file. When I deal with the created project (writing code...),
the project for me is a whole. It is a directory containing my code, the
config files, the Makefiles, the .kdevelop file....


Now when I open an existing project, I have to dig and find the
.kdevelop file related to the project I am interest in; This file being
not in the "location" directory but in the project directory by itself.
Here I think there is a problem. As a newbye to Kdevelop, I was using
the notion of project I had developed when I created it first. That is
to say, "application name" and "location". I was absolutely unaware of
the existence of the .kdevelop file and I wasn't att all associating a
project to this simple file. When the "open project" window opened, I
saw the .kdevelop file being the filter but I did not integer what it
meant, I was simply still using the notion of project I had derived from
the project creation phase and I clicked on the directory I was
interested in, a directory who had the name of the "application name" or
the name of the project... When I clicked on the directory's name, I had
a message error. I came to the conclusion that the "open project"
function was bugged... That's the logic I followed without even really
thinking about it. 
What I am trying to say is that I have the feeling that there is a
discrepency in the notion of project in "Create project" (A directory
having the name of the application name and containing many different
files being the project) and the notion of project in "Open project"
(The .kdevelop file). I think this discrepency can lead to
misunderstanding and confusion.

I mentionned in a previous mail the possibility to erase a project from
Kdevelop. There too one has to be careful with the notion of project.
Are we talking about the complete directory or the .kdevelop file?...
Well, in my mind I am talking about the complete directory but according
to the logic we have in the "open project" function, we are talking
about the .kdevelop file... :)



How this could be solved?
Why don't we create a hidden file somewhere in the .kde directory
containing a list of the project created by the user with Kdevelop and
available? In the "open project" window could be displayed then this
list. A kind of table with the "application name", the language used,
the version number (or date of last modification) and the location of
the project on the HD. The user would just have to click on the project
he is interested in to open it, Kdevelop looking for the .kdevelop file
by itself. The same system could be used for the "Remove project"
function, the function modifying the hidden list to reflect the removal
of a project.

I think this approach would remove for the best the
unprecision/discrepency in the notion of Project that I experienced.
Please tell me what you think. I am right now just talking about
Man-Machine interface and human interpretation of different
menus/functions.



> Hope this helps you, if you find any other bug or have more questions,
> don't hesitate to ask.

Well, this time I came with a more elaborated description of what I
experienced and of my feeling as a basic user, a new user discovering
the program for the very first time. Fresh and new with no preconceived
ideas or old habits....


			Daniel