KDevelop

KDevelop is a free Integrated Development Environment (IDE).  It uses the GNU Compiler collection, rather than implement its own compiler.

KDevelop integrates a lot of tools, scripts, and templates in a common user interface. It consists of several user interfaces modes, an Application Wizard, several project management system, editing tools, various file and class browsers, a debugger interfavce, several plugin tool and a set of other diagnosis, documentation, and optimization helper tools.

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Features include:

• Code Snippets
  • SnippetPart adds a tool-view which by default docks to the right
  • Adding, editing and removing of snippets is available via a popup-menu
  • Double-clicking a snippet form the list inserts it into to the active view at the current cursor position
  • Tool tips show the content of a snippet
  • Snippets are stored in the users home-directory, so every user can have his own snippets
  • Snippets can contain variables in the style of $VARNAME$. On using the snippet the user is prompted to enter replacement value for the variables
• Doxygen integration (API documentation generator)
  • Supports all programming languages that doxygen does (except IDL and D)
  • Previews the documentation that doxygen generates for the file you're currently editing
  • Configures doxygen
  • Runs doxygen
  • Views doxygen generated docs (html man or pdf formats)
  • Can use doxygen's generated XML as tooltips for "as you type" code completion
• Plugin based documentation viewer
  • A unified interface to browsing documentation.
  • TOC, index and full text search (with htdig) capabilities.
  • Autodetection and inclusion of Qt, KDE Libs and DevHelp documentation.
  • Support for custom documentation collections (KDevelopTOC format).
  • Ability to open local, remote and even compressed documentation (using any protocol supported by Konqueror - http, ftp, sftp, tar, zip, etc.).
  • Supports TXT, HTML, DevHelp, CHM, PDF, Djvu and PDB file formats.Linuxworld New York 2004 conference & Expo: First place for "Best Development Tools"
  • Can use any documentation format that your KDE supports
• Flexible application wizard (project templates)
  • Application wizard generates complete, ready-to-go sample applications.
  • Templates for each supported language and build system exist.
  • Ability to use custom application templates not included in distribution.
  • Contains all of KDevelop 3.0 templates plus GTK, GNOME and Bonobo application templates
• RAD (Rapid Application Development) oriented
  • New kdevdesigner application allows seamless QT based GUI development by integrating QTdesigner in the KDE framework.
  • New kdevassistant application allows QT style documentation help.
  • These both applications can be used as standalone or from within KDevelop itself, this enables one development program for all your development needs.

• C++ Support
  • switch header/implementation
    • works inside the single file
    • works correctly with methods with typedef'ed return values
    • works with constant functions
    • aware of using directives when locating the functions from the namespace
  • Persistant Class Store (Code Completion databases)
    • KDE class importer correctly finds kdelibs location
    • Qt4 class importer added
    • autodetected paths now overrideable
  • code hinting
    • status bar shows the type of the expression under the cursor
  • c++ parser
    • Modify the parser to extract comments from the code, attach them to corresponding items, and store them into the AST
    • Fix a case where the cpp parser suddenly ate all RAM when facing macro-heavy files
  • code model
    • make the code-model and repository store more information like templates and comments, and provide them.
    • the code-model now completely works with nested classes that are forward-declared in one file, and completely declared in another(file-groups are managed now, and code-model-items that are physically from one file, can now be attached to another, so some search-functions had to be improved).
  • code completion
    • is much more reliable
    • was rewritten in big parts
    • works within template-classes
    • works within functions of classes that are imported by using-directives
    • can parse much more complex expressions and can easily be extended to understand additional operators(using an abstract operator-class)
    • supports class-templates, function-templates, and even implicit template-instantiation for function-templates
    • evaluates all types in the completion-entry-list and shows their template-processed(real) types
    • calltips and the completion-list show the corresponding comments
    • the completion-entry-list now shows the members sorted by their access-rights, and shows a note behind members that are protected/private
    • Fixes the bug of KDevelop crashing while completing a class which has itself as base-class and a few other little bugs
  • new context-menus that evaluate the expression under the cursor and allow to browse the code and the code-model using all types and variables involved
  • new class wizard
    • bug fixes
    • creation of headers only
• Plugin-based architecture
  • Functionality can be added, replaced and removed without altering core source code.
  • Libraries license (LGPL) allows creating commercial and free IDE plugins.
  • Support for profiles which determine a set of plugins to be loaded. This is especially usefull for restricted environments or custom setups.
• Project Management
  • Native non-intrusive automake and qmake support. Hand-made modifications allowed and recognized by the IDE, also existing projects and subprojects can be easily imported.
  • Ability to use custom makefiles to build the project.
  • Support for ant - build tool for java projects.
  • Support for extra project types like pascal, haskell, ada and scripting projects.
  • A framework for adding support for any build system by creating build system plugins for the generic project manager.
  • New file wizard to manage file templates and create new files in project from templates.
  • Compiler plugins to define compiler options in convenient dialogs.
  • Configuration profiles with the ability to specify different compilers, compiler flags, build directories, target architecture, etc.
  • Project documenting facilities such as doxygen support for creating automatic API-documentation (in html, tex and man formats) for a project with cross-references to the used libraries.
  • Internationalization support, allowing translators to add their target language to a project easily, including support of KBabel.
  • Support for Qt/Embedded projects
• Language Support
  • 15 supported languages including Ada, C, C++, Objective-C (via C support), SQL, Fortran, Haskell, Java, PHP, Pascal, Perl, Python, Ruby, Bash, XUL (unofficially).
  • Problem reporter which reports various "problems" with the source code as you type. Problems include language syntax errors, TODO's and FIXME's.
  • Class browser to display a hierarchy of classes and other symbols in project.
  • Language parsers to feed class browser and problem reporter.
  • Class, method and attribute wizards for object-oriented languages.
  • Automatic code completion and code hinting for class variables, methods, function arguments and more.
  • Source formatting, syntax highlighting and code folding.
  • C++ specific features, such as
    • "make member" - creating method definition in source file basing on the method declaration in header file;
    • "extract interface"- extracting interface (method declarations) and creating abstract base class with that interface;
    • "subclassing" - automated subclass creating and slot implementing for Qt Designer forms.
• Integrated Debugger
  • GDB and Java debugger frontends.
  • Integrated GDB console.
  • Line, address, method breakpoints and watchpoints.
  • Conditional breakpoints.
  • Disassembler and frame stack viewer.
  • Variable watch tree.
  • Memory, registers and libraries viewers.
  • Debugger shell (libtool) support.
  • Remote debugging.
  • Variables widget
  • Stack Widget
• Code Editing
  • Any editor which implements KDE KTextEditor interface can be used with KDevelop.
  • Currently available editors are Kate, QEditor (based on the Qt Designer editor) and KVim.
  • Project wide bookmarks which are stored in the project file.
  • Difference viewer between currently edited text and text on the disk.
  • Difference viewer for patch files.
  • Grep integration - regular expression search in project.
  • Project wide find and replace tool.
• Version Control System
  • A common API to include VCS support in KDevelop.
  • Supported VCS systems: CVS, Perforce, Subversion and Clearcase.
• Application Wizard
  • Application wizard generates complete, ready-to-go sample applications.
  • Templates for each supported language and build system exist.
  • Ability to use custom application templates not included in distribution.
  • A bunch of KDE related project templates (KPart applications, simple KDE applications, KControl modules, Kicker (panel) applets, KOffice parts, KIOSlaves, Konqueror, Noatun and Kate plugins and desktop styles).
• Documentation Viewer
  • A unified interface to browsing documentation.
  • TOC, index and full text search (with htdig) capabilities.
  • Autodetection and inclusion of Qt, KDE Libs and DevHelp documentation.
  • Support for custom documentation collections (KDevelopTOC format).
  • Ability to open local, remote and even compressed documentation (using any protocol supported by Konqueror - http, ftp, sftp, tar, zip, etc.).
  • Ability to open various documentation formats (html, text, ps, pdf, chm, etc.).
• Other Features
  • The user interface is fully configurable, it allows on the fly switching between classic MDI modes like toplevel, childframe and the new IDEAl mode featuring sliding tool-views.
  • Embedded console.
  • File selector, file tree and file groups facilities obviating the need for an external file manager.
  • The inclusion of any other program you need for development by adding it to the "Tools"-menu according to your individual needs.
  • Regular expression tester.
  • Valgrind integration to find memory leaks in programs.
  • Project distribution and packaging tool for automated creation of source and binary packages.
  • CTags integration.
  • Part explorer to query available KDE services.

Last Updated Wednesday, April 23 2008 @ 02:25 PM EDT