One IDE to rule them all

[bejolly407]

What do you think about making the GTK-based IDE the only IDE?

On Windows, the project gvsbuild provides prebuilt binaries for both GTK3 and GTK4:

https://github.com/wingtk/gvsbuild/releases

The MSYS2 project also has binary packages for both GTK3 and GTK4.

[arakov]

Sure, it can be done. We will see when I will finish IDE for Linux, if it will be practical to have a build for Windows as well

[ghost]

What are you using for implementing the syntax highlighting feature for the GTK based IDE? The natural choice would be GtkSourceView (add a new XML based specs file - elena.lang), or maybe Scintilla (like Geany does).

[arakov]

So far I'm just reusing my own implementation of it. We will see if it has any advantage later.

[ghost]

If the GTK based IDE is superior, let's make it default. Otherwise, it not worth more disk space for GTK. Look at Geany which is a typical GTK app on Windows and see how much disk space it consumes compared to a normal Windows API app.

[ghost]

Yes, I believe the code should be kept portable and the GTK based IDE should build on Windows for people wanting it. But it shouldn't be the default if it's not superior and the Windows API based IDE shouldn't be removed.

[ghost]

Let's create separate targets for the Windows API based IDE and the GTK based IDE in the Makefile. People will tell make to build whatever they want.

[arakov]

I'm not planning to get rid of Windows native implementation so far. Gtk based IDE is compiled under MinGW / GCC. So quite logically if someone would like to use this version, it must include that type of IDE. But for MSBuild one, the default one will be required anyway.

[bejolly407]

Please add both the Windows API based IDE and the GTK based IDE to Makefile: #798

I want to try building both of them on MSYS2.

[arakov]

I'm still working on migrating IDE to Gtk4. It requires some significant changes. When I finish it I will update a make file to include IDE and a new one with Gtk IDE.

[bejolly407]

@arakov Can you stop the Windows IDE from creating fake project when opening a source file?

For example, when I open gui/agenda/form.l, a fake project called form is created, shown on the left pane as form -> form.l. I call this project fake, because it doesn't exist. There is no form.prj created on disk. The real project is agenda.prj. This is very confusing.

BTW, the Open button on the toolbar is default to open files instead of projects. So does the New button. Could you expose the project feature more? For example, adding New Project and Open Project into the Project menu?

[ghost]

I agree that everything related to projects (New, Open, Close,...) should be moved to Project menu.

I also have another idea. The Open button on toolbar should handle projects, too. Source file and project have different extensions (.l vs .prj), so why can't they be handled in the same dialog?

[arakov]

There are two type of projects : single file project or normal one (usually containing multiple files).

And for a single file project, you still have to specify the base template / path and so on. So there should be a possibility to open project settings. And of course in this situation you must have a way to create a normal project if you want to add another file. So it works correctly.

But I do understand the confusion. As a possible solution, IDE may warn you if there is a project file for the source file you intended to open. So in this case then you will try to open form.l file, IDE will ask, "do you want to the open project file agenda.prj containing form.l?"

As for the menu / tool bar, sure I can add a menu option there, and make possible to open the project or file in this case