Improving the templates in KDevelop/KAppTemplate

[Simon Wächter]

Hello there

First a few words about myself: My name is Simon Wächter and I work as a 
software developer for an IT company in Switzerland. I use KDevelop for 
my daily work and my own projects. I want to contribute to the KDevelop 
project because I think that KDevelop is an awesome IDE and helps me to 
reach a better workflow.

So now about the real content of this email: Because I use KDevelop for 
my daily work and as a starting point for developing KDE applications, I 
came in touch with the KDE project templates, provided by the KDevelop 
and KAppTemplate project. Sadly, I encountered a few "problems" with 
these templates. I can split these problems into two categories:

1.) Smaller problems

  * Some KAppTemplate templates contain misleading variable names,
    trailing whitespaces, commented lines etc. I asked Anne-Marie
    Mahfouf from the KAppTemplate project to fix/improve these problems
    and she gave me her ok
  * The KDevelop Qt project templates are also improvable, so I talked
    with Sven Brauch (scummos) about the situation. The idea is that I
    improve these templates the following week

2.) Bigger KAppTemplate problem

  * KAppTemplate contains several interesting templates. The problem is,
    that the package is just a suggestion for KDevelop (At least in
    Debian). This means, many KDevelop users don't know about this
    package. This is especially bad for new developer that want to
    develop a Qt/KDE application. I also had this problem and was quite
    happy that there were some examples (Beside the techbase tutorials)

So my questions is: Is there a way (or a need) to set the KAppTemplate 
package as a requirement for KDevelop ? This would result in the 
following advantages/disadvantages:

Advantages

  * Move the KDevelop Qt plugins to the KAppTemplate project. This would
    simplify the KDevelop packages. KAppTemplate would serve as a real
    provider for all project templates
  * KAppTemplate could contain a sample KDevelop/KDevPlatform plugin
  * More people know about the different project templates in KDevelop.
    KAppTemplate provides an application, but I don't know anybody that
    uses this application

Disadvantages

  * Higher dependency of the KDevelop package. It also needs some
    arrangement with the distro packager


As a conclusion, this would really increase the effect of the project 
templates - but needs some work. I am willing to improve the the 
KDevelop/KAppTemplate project templates and move them to the 
KAppTemplate project.

Please let me know about your personal thoughts about this situation. 
Maybe it's just a bad idea, maybe something interesting. Also, if there 
are some other (smaller) things to do, as a starting point, please write 
an email or send a message via IRC to swaechter.

Bets regards,
Simon Wächter
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