Creating new Applications

Das KDevelop-Programmierhandbuch: Leitfaden zur C++-Anwendungsentwicklung für das K Desktop Environment (KDE) mit Hilfe der KDevelop-IDE in der Version 1.2
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# Kapitel 3. Creating new Applications

The KAppWizard, or also called the KDE Application Wizard, is intended to let you start working on new projects with KDevelop. Therefore, all your projects are first created by the wizard; then you can start building them and extend the already provided source skeleton. KAppWizard also allows to choose between several project types according to your project's goals:

- Normal KDE Application: includes source code for a complete frame structure of a standard KDE application with support for the Document-View-Controller model, a menubar, toolbar and statusbar as well as a set of standard documentation based on SGML , KDE-links and application icons. This is the application type usually needed for a new KDE project.

- Mini KDE Application: contains the same general structure as the Normal KDE Application type but with the difference that the application's code only provides a widget as a window.

- Normal Qt Application: works like the normal KDE application by it's code with the difference that the project is based on the Qt library only and doesn't contain KDE support. This is intended for projects that have to be portable to Windows platforms or that don't want to require KDE libraries by the end-user.

- C Application: Is based on the C compiler only and runs in a console.

- C++ Application: Is based on the C++ compiler only and runs in a console like the C application, therefore doesn't require X-Window.

- Custom project: creates an empty project without any sourcecode. This is intended for already existing projects to port to KDevelop or for projects where you want to start from scratch. Mind that you have to take care for makefiles and configure scripts all by yourself.

In this chapter we'll see how the KAppWizard can be invoked and what has to be done to generate a KDE application project. This will also be the initial step of our coverage, where we will create the initial version of a sample project. For all other project types the steps are usually the same, just you may not have certain options available.

# 3.1. Invoking KAppWizard and Project Generation

## 3.1.1. Starting KAppWizard and the First Page

To start with your first KDE application, open KDevelop. Then select "New..." from the "Project"-menu. The KAppWizard starts, and you see a tree on the first page, containing the project types. When a type is selected, you see a preview how it will look like after the initial build process. Choose the KDE subtree, Normal type. Then press the "Next" button on the bottom of the first wizard page. This will switch to the next page, where you have to set the general project options.

## 3.1.2. The Generate Settings Page

For our sample application, we choose the project name `KScribble`; therefore insert this in the field "Projectname". Then select the directory you want to have your project build in; the default is your home directory. You can enter the path manually or you can as well press the button on the right to select the directory by a dialog.

Next, you have to enter the Version number. For the first version, set this to `0.1`. It is usual to number new applications that are in development for the first release lower than 1, and as the initial version will only contain the standard framework, we'll name this the 0.1 version.

Finally, add your name to the "Author" field and your email address. You can leave all other options to their default settings.

To give you some information about all other options, you can press the right mouse button over the options, and you will get a quick-help window that describes the option's purpose.

These are:

- generate sources and headers: generates the application source code

- GNU-Standard-Files: adds a copy of the GNU-General Public License to the project as well as some standard files for user information when distributing the package.

- User-Documentation: the user handbook in SGML , already prepared for your project.

- API -Documentation: creates an initial HTML documentation set for the Application Programming Interface.

- lsm-File: the Linux Software Map, used by distribution sites and contains short information about the project's purpose and requirements.

- .kdelnk -File: a KDE link that will install your application in the "Applications" tree of the KDE-Panel.

- Program-Icon: an Icon that represents your project and can be used to create a link on the desktop.

- Mini-Icon: a Mini-version of the program icon that represents your application besides its name in the KDE-Panel and is shown in your application's dialogs and main-window in the left upper corner.

Now we'll switch to the next page by pressing the "Next" button again to set the template for the header files of your project.

## 3.1.3. The Header and Source Templates

The header template page allows you to automatically include a preface for your header files, containing the filename, the construction date, the year of the copyright, also your name and your email address. You don't have to change those uppercase parts yourself, as KAppWizard does this automatically and stores the template for this project, so it can be used later again for creating new files.

The second part of the default header template contains a license information. By default, your project is set under the GNU General Public License, which is also included in the package. This license is used to protect your source code against any person that just copies your sources for his own purpose. The General Public License offers you this license for free and thereby protects your rights as the author, and is common for distributing free software. To get more information about the license, you should read the COPYING file in the base directory of your new project later which is a copy of the GPL and ships with your application already.

Anyway, you may want to choose another license or another header template you're already using for your projects. Therefore you can either edit the given default template directly. To do this, you're given the template in an editing window. To clear the default page, select "New", to use another template, select "Load...", which lets you choose the template file.

When you're done, go to the next page by entering "Next". This is the template page for your source files and is generally the same as the header template page. The only difference is that this template is used for your implementation files.

## 3.1.4. Creating the Project

Now that you've set all options for KScribble, select "Next" and press the "Generate" button on the bottom of the wizard window. If the button is not available, you haven't set all options correctly. To correct any errors, step back in the Wizard with "Back".

Then you'll see what KAppWizard does- he copies all templates to your project directory and creates the new project. After KAppWizard is finished, the "Cancel" button changes to an "Exit" button to leave the wizard.

After this last step, you're finished with creating a new project. KDevelop then loads it and the tree-views let you browse through the project's files and classes.

In the next section, we'll discuss how to build and run your first version of KScribble and how the source code is organized.

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