kate's "Open Folder..." feature

[christoph at cullmann.io]

On 2024-02-11 14:59, Alexander Neundorf wrote:
> 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".

I like that I can just open the build tree, too.

And with the new variant that will even work without having the Kate 
generator set.
I think even just that will make it easier to use.

Greetings
Christoph

> 
> Alex