Cpp Ide

CppIde is a simple CeePlusPlus IntegratedDevelopmentEnvironment. CppIde is pronounced "cee-pied". It was written by John Kopplin of http://www.computersciencelab.com .

Major features:

1. The default compiler is g++ (GnuCpp).

2. The default text editor is SciTE (ScintillaTextEditor).

3. The default debugger is gdb (GnuDebugger?).

4. It uses .mak files (GnuMake).

5. It runs on most varieties of MicrosoftWindows.

6. It is designed for programs that call the Windows API directly, either as part of Windows command line programs, or as part of Windows GUI programs.

7. It is part of a sequence of courses, one on ReversePolishNotation, a second on 8051 AssemblyLanguage, and a third on C (and some C++).

8. It comes with lots of sample code. Some is explained as part of the C / C++ course. It also has code and/or project environment files for a few C++ books that Kopplin recommends.

9. The price is low. ($19 per seat, including the courses and all three programming environments, as of March 2008. It is legal for an entire household to share a single seat.)

10. It has a LightweightInstall?. The one registry entry is to allow the program to be easily uninstalled.

Limitations:

1. No AutoComplete?.

2. Clumsy support for project folders. It seems that the only way to open a project that is stored outside the CppIde's install folder tree is to launch CppIde, choose "Open Project...", and then enter/browse to the path to the project.

3. Poor retention of IDE options. The only IDE option that is retained is whether Windows GUI programs (that are being debugged) appear above or the left of the IDE. This option is stored in the .prj file. It does not have "below" or "right" options. If you want to see source code line numbers, you need to enter this option every time you start CppIde. If you want the IDE to be less than full-size (when not debugging Windows programs), you need to resize the IDE every time you start CppIde.

4. Clumsy support for adding classes. It seems that the only way to add files to a project is to manually create empty or boilerplate versions of the new files, close CppIde, edit the .prj file to list the new files, edit the .prj file to set the order in which the files are listed in CppIde, re-open CppIde, and manually fix four locations in the .mak file. Fortunately, these steps can be done in a variety of orders.

5. The new project wizard only recognizes a few file types -- it does not even recognize .rc files. These files need to be added in the same clumsy way as for adding a new class.

6. It is not a RefactoringBrowser.

7. It does not have any special features for automating UnitTests.

8. MakeClean? is only available as a menu item, not as a toolbar button.