kate's "Open Folder..." feature

[Alexander Neundorf]

On Sonntag, 11. Februar 2024 12:38:35 CET Kåre Särs wrote:
...
> I have a hunch that the workflow to manually run cmake in a terminal and
> then after that open the build folder with Kate, to get the CMake-Project,
> is not what most users would expect.
> I think most users would expect is to "open a CMake project" by "opening"
> the CMakeLists.txt and then Kate would create the build directory and run
> the configure command(s).

maybe when a user expects an IDE with a fully integrated cmake support, maybe 
then, yes. 
For me, it's completely different.
There is the case that I'm working on the project I'm actually working on, 
then this may be reasonable. 
But quite often there are projects where I'm just a consumer. I get the 
sources and build and install them from the command line.
Then, sometimes I have to do something in them, maybe because it doesn't 
build, or I need to debug something, or change installation rules, or 
something.
Then I don't want a new build tree and rebuild everything.
I simply want to use kate to work on the already existing build tree.

I'm supporting people working with different IDEs with varying levels of 
support for cmake.
For each of them the user has to find out how they integrate cmake, and how to 
configure that:
- do I have to create a project for that IDE in cmake (Visual Studio), or does 
the IDE itself run cmake ?
-  if so, which cmake does it run ? the user may have multiple versions 
installed. Does it search via PATH, or is this configurable ? Or does it come 
with an embedded copy of cmake ? Which version is that ?
- if it runs cmake, how do I set cmake variables, and what is the recommended 
way to tell cmake which compiler to use ? (since this has to be done before 
the initial cmake run)
- if it runs cmake, where does it create the build directory ? Does it have  
builtin defaults where they are created ? Can I adjust how they are named ?
- why happens if I switch between build types in the IDE ? Does it reconfigure 
the build tree and so force a full rebuild ? Or does it know about e.g. the 
multo-config ninja generator ? Or does it create a separate build tree for each 
type ?

I know IDEs do that, and I think it's much better to let the user just say 
"this is my build tree, use it".

Alex