HbQt, HbXBP and HbIDE is back...

Hello Everybody

Let me enjoy the pleasure to announce the new home for 

HbQt, HbXBP, HbIDE, which, for good reasons, were removed 

from Harbour's repository.

Checkout: 

https://svn.code.sf.net/p/hbaddons/svn/trunk

How to get:

Create "addons" subfolder in Harbour root, as 

harbour/addons

And checkout with above link into this folder.

How to build:

Access the console as you would be accessing for Harbour.

CD to addons.

Issue: hbmk2 hbaddons.hbp -rebuild.

That's it.

The binaries will be deposited in where Harbour build deposits.

Mailing-lists for developers and users will be announced later.

I am really thankful to Maurizio, Francessco Perillo, Francesco Saverio Giudice

for their whole hearted support. SF "hbaddons" project includes 

Viktor and Przemek as Admins. 

It would important here to mention that the bug of HbIDE 

which throws GPF on EXIT on nix systems, reported by 

Przemek has been fixed. This GPF was also present on 

MSVC since begining, on all versions. The fix is materialized 

in .qth files, where I overlooked QSpacerItem, which is a 

non-QObject derived class but was being handelled as 

if it was a QObject. So, until someone comes across any such 

overlook, I can assume HbQt to be stable.

Hope to see you downloading these components...

Regards

Pritpal Bedi

a student of software analysis & concepts

hbIDE as at Today

hbIDE's growth can be summarized as:

•	what it is today,

•	what is proposed,

•	what is on todo list,

•	its strengths, and

•

pitfalls

What it is today

•	Implements: multiple projects edit,compile,link cycles with multiple compilers from within single instance.

•	Implements: tracking the compile/link errors and opening the source containing thus error in the editor with offending line under cursor.

•	Implements: multiple editing sessions within a single instance with easy navigation and cut/copy/paste portability amongst them.

•

Implements: high-performance edit instances with a bunch of features, such as, intelligent auto-indentation; in-build keyword capitalization (.prg); ability to switch on/off line-number display; selected block operations: left-right indentation, single-line comments, multi-line comments, double to single quotes, single to double quotes; case conversions: lower to upper, upper to lower, invert cases; line operations: duplicating a line, deletion of line, moving lined in either direction - up/down; and many more.

•	Implements: splitting one edit instance into multiple horizontal and/or vertical windows to edit different parts of the same source simultaneously.

•	Implements: auto-disaster-recovery for every editing instance per minute interval ensuring the maximum amount of loss confined to a minute's work only.

•	Implements: code-skeleton definition and rendering to next levels with user-defined macros and variables in addition to hbIDE defined macros.

•	Implements: tagging of functions prototypes for next levels of function lookups and other "intellisense" features for multiple projects simultaneously.

•	Implements: a reasonable level of "intellisense" providing code-completion lists, on-the-spot function prototype tips, full-blown function overlook, and more.

•	Implements: a powerful "Find-in-files" feature accepting currently-opened edits, contained projects, folders  on the disk including sub-folders, options for plain-text or regular expression search, and finally opening the source with currently clicked search-text highlighted in the editor.

•	Implements: a unique "Document Viewer" which pulls the NANFORUM documentation format compliant .txt files from a "root folder" and tree and presents the contents in a navigable browser with options to - "Print", "Save as .pdf", and more.

•

Implements: a unique way to write documentation for functions contained in the editing sessions with options to insert the same into the source at appropriate place or save as a NANFORUM documentation format compliant .txt file on disk which, in-turn, is fully compliant to be viewed in "Document Viewer" if opted as such.

•	Implements: out-of-the-box syntax highlighting for .prg, .c, .cpp, .ch, .h, sources with a provision to set the highlighting themes in the hands of the user as per needs and offering a bunch of pre-defined themes plus interface to inject your own.

•	Implements: intelligent "book-marks" with visual elements to define, locate and destroy - with least efforts - almost hassle free.

•	Implements: to be used as simple text-editor, a project maintainer and/or builder, or both.

•

Implements: "Tools & Utilities" features which extends hbIDE to take use of any other program, including the DOS prompt, to be executed with parameters from within hbIDE and in a detached manner. Probably it will be wise to extend it to accept parameters comprised of properties of hbIDE components, such as, source file name on disk opened in current editor instance.

•	Implements: saving the current state of hbIDE when exited normally and restores the exact same environment at next run, including the editors state per cursor position, the size and position of the main frame, and lot more.

•	Implements: an interface to define short-cut macros just like xMate plus including some extended functionality.

•

Implements: three types of selection modes: 1. Stream Selection  2. Column Selection  3. Line Selection. All type of blocks are persistent across files. Stream selection mode is a standard text selection protocol implemented by every text editor in the world. Column selection has some peculiar application and Line selection mode offer yet another functionality. All types offer standard cut/copy/paste behavior. Paste operation honors the selection mode, f.e., a block selected under column mode will be pasted as column block. Line blocks overwrite the exiting lines if pasted.

•	Implemented: a simple yet powerful interface to hook third-party plugins designating it truely extensible.

•	Implements: integration with Visual Source Safe ( VSS ), version control system.

What is proposed

•	Visual debugger - someone has to jump in as I know a little about debuggers and their behavior

•	Form editor - which is out of question until we have a complete GUI framework in place.

•	Object browser - what is this ?

•	Version control (SVN) integration - should be easy; need to explore the command-line commands.

What is on todo list

•	Wizard based project creation for different compilers - xHarbour, Clipper, Xbase++, Flagship, Clip; for multiple C compilers.

Strengths

•	An out-of-the-box experience for Xbase dialect programmers without the hassles of writing tough scripts to achieve high levels of productivity.

•	An all-in-one, composite-components oriented, highly desktop real-estate conscious interface leveraging the levels of productivity to highest extent.

•	With a programmer-oriented approach shedding any inclination of commercial orientation.

•	With highest possibilities to be extended by anyone who does not have any interaction with C language.

Pitfalls

•

High memory-intensive back-bone.

More at http://hbide.vouch.info/?and_as_of_now.htm

Harbour’s IDE - integrated development environment - centric, ready-to-use distibution.

CCH : Message by Pritpal bedi on my Guest Book

This is 99.9% configure free distro, just install,
copy one file from a folder and drop in another,
and use.

--------------------------------------------------

WELCOME

This is Harbour’s IDE - integrated development
environment - centric, ready-to-use distibution.

You can download it from
www.vouch.info/downloads/harbour_dev_setup.exe

This distro is comprised of following parts;

1. Harbour binaries for mingw and bcc.
harbour/bin/*
harbour/include/*
harbour/lib
bcc/*
mingw/*
harbour/doc/*
harbour/contrib/gtwvg/tests/*
harbour/contrib/hbqt/tests/*
/contrib/hbqt/doc/*
harbour/contrib/hbxbp/tests/*
harbour/tests/*
2. Mingw C compiler.
3. hbIDE.
4. Qt’s minimum runtime required to link
and execute a hbQT based application.
5. Environment

This distro also provides building-blocks to
experment with hbQT implementation. It is
particularly useful to Xbase++ developers
who are looking for alternatives.

Run the installer, and if possible, follow
the default folder - C;\harbour_dev. It is not
mandatory, just a suggession to keep the structure
simple enough to recognize. You can change the
drive as you wish, and even root folder, but
follow above advice if possible.

After installation is complete, you will have an
entry into the programs folder and also a desktop
icon if you did opted for it. Click any one or
at the end of installation opt for "Run..."

hbIDE’s welcome screen should popup in front of you.
To start anything significant, please follow few
simple steps, only once, to setup your environment.

1. Copy {app}env\hbide.env and paste it somewhere.
2. Open pasted copy and change

[ MINGW ]
{content} set IDE_INSTALL=C;\harbour_dev

to

[ MINGW ]
{content} set IDE_INSTALL=C;\somefolder\harbour_dev

assuming you have installed the setup in
C;\somefolder\harbour_dev instead of its default
location.

3. Run hbIDE.
4. Click "Compiler Environment" icon on the right
toolbar and provide the path_to_modified_hbide.env
in "Path to hbIDE env;" field.
5. The contents of this file must show-up.
6. Click "Save and Close" button.
7. That’s it. You are ready to build a project.

Let’s warm-up with an existing project before starting
some serious work.

1. From menu select "Open a Project".
2. File open dialog will showup. Navigate to
C;\harbour_dev\contrib\gtwvg\tests, and select
demowvg.hbp.
3. Project will appear in "Projects" tree window
at the left.
4. Right-click on the project name node - Demo WVG -
and from "Select an Environment" menu option
select "MINGW".
5. Again right-click on the project name node and
select "Build and Launch"
6. There you go, if everything is ok, project must
build and you must see demowvg.exe running.
7. Off course you will not see all the images
on the screen, because we have not instructed
this project to "Start in;" proper place, but
WVG console must appear.
8. Quickly add other projects - Demo WVG_XBP.
9. You can also play with demoXBP and demoQT but
for this to happen, you will need to provide
either _path_to_qt_dlls_ as global path which
should be visible to hbIDE or copy
{app}\harbour_dev\QtΜ.6.2\lib\*.dll to
Windows system32 folder or copy in the folder
where demoxbp.exe is residing.

A html compiled help file hbIDE.chm and the same
in PDF format hbIDE.pdf is also included in the
distro. Examine them. These are exactly the same
help which you can find online at
hbide.vouch.info /


hbIDE is now mature enough to handle any large
project, but still, please note that this is
not an official release, so you may expect bumps
here-and-there.

This distribution includes only binaries. Please
download SVN tree if you need sources or want to
play with the latest commits. It is not necessary
for your applications.


PROCESS ADOPTED BEFORE BUILDING THIS PACKAGE
- Updated Harbour Sources from SVN
- Build Harbour Binaries for above Compilers
- Compiled and Executed demowvg.prg
- Bundled the Package
- Uploaded to my site
- Downloaded the package on another computer
- Run the Installer
- Compiled and Executed demowvg.prg for each compiler


Enjoy

Pritpal Bedi

hbIDE is ready !

hbIDE, as the name implies, Harbour's Integrated Development Environment, is an open-source, multi-platform, project hosted inside Harbour's SVN repository. hbIDE is aimed at simplifying the process of project life-cycle comprising, setting-up the project components, editing the sources, building them to final binaries.

Currently, only Harbour as a compiler is supported, and hopefully soon, its domain will be extended to xHarbour, Xbase++, Clipper, Clip, Flagship.

The central essense of hbIDE is to provide a single-window interface to carry on all related actions for an application project to materialize, without needing any other tool in the process. This concept is extended to make use of n number of C compilers from within the same project definition.

For Harbour projects, hbIDE will take use of the its powerful make system, hbMK2. For other compilers, mechanism will be provided to define compiler, linker commands and source definitions. This will, usually, be a one time process, and for rest of the life of the project hbIDE will take over.

The topics enumerated at the left are just an indication what will go inside them. I will be updating them as time will permit, though my primary attention is the development of hbIDE.

To be just familiar with how the interface may look, a random screen shot of hbIDE, hosting my own production projects is presented below.


"plain" look:


"animated" look:



However, throughout these pages "Plain" look screen shots will be displayed.

More at  hbide.vouch.info