RE: [boost] Re: Customer Friendlier Boost Installation

From: Reece Dunn (msclrhd_at_[hidden])
Date: 2005-05-25 07:06:45

Russell Hind wrote:
>Paul A Bristow wrote:
>>If you share my concern, would some someone like to prepare something?
>>Or at least provide details of their way of doing it.
>>I will be willing to help with checking/editing.
>
>I'd like to see IDE projects for bosot (e.g. BCB6, VS.Net etc).  That would 
>make things a lot, lot nicer.  I did do this for C++BuilderX, but only for 
>the specific parts I required, and not for all the possible combinations of 
>static/dynamic runtimes, dlls/static libs, thread/non-threaded.
>
>I'll see if I can get something for BCB6 together, but I think it will take 
>a while as fairly swamped at work at the moment.

What would be better is a way to auto-generate IDE projects from the jam 
files. That way you don't need to specify VC6, VC7, VC71, VC8, BCB5, BCB6, 
CodeWarrior, Eclipse, insert-your-favorite-IDE-here project files for all 
the examples, libraries, etc. Ideally, there should be a single program that 
could process jam files (an extension of bjam?) that can accept a template 
file that tells it how the project file(s) should be structured.

This would then allow something like:

   genide libs/program_options/examples msvc-7.1

which would generate the project files for the specified project.

Alternatively, there could be plugins written to hook into the various IDEs 
that will import a bjam project in a friendly GUI way. (This might call the 
command-line utility so people who prefer command-line or GUI can take their 
pick.)

Perhapse what is also needed is a friendly GUI that allows you to configure 
bjam/BBv2 and create new projects. This infrastructure could hook into your 
favorite IDE (Eclipse, VS, BCB) so you could edit build and run the jam 
files from inside the IDE without touching the command line. This would go a 
long way to increasing the appeal of Boost to a RAD/GUI developer. It should 
also be possible to edit the project (jam) files directly and have control 
over their formatting.

Summing up, there would be a GUI-based:
*  setup/configuration of Boost;
*  project creation wizards to create BBv2 projects;
*  conversion tool to convert to your favorite IDE format;
*  hook-ins to allow BBv2 projects to be managed in your favorite IDE.

Reece Haston Dunn
Software Engineer, Sophos

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