QDevelop is an exclusive development environment designed to support the development of the Qt4 programming language.
Unlike KDevelop, QDevelop is an independent IDE dedicated solely to Qt development, which makes it faster, lighter and especially multi-platform. QDevelop and KDevelop have different code sources, so it is a distinct tool worth trying out.
QDevelop boasts several noteworthy features. For instance, it supports multiple operating systems, including Linux, Windows 2000/XP/Vista, Mac OS X and FreeBSD. It also allows for reading and writing project files with some small restrictions, as well as adding, deleting, and editing project files or external files. Furthermore, the software manages normal projects and project SUBDIRS, and allows for independent builds for each project.
Developers will also love QDevelop's powerful editor, which includes syntax highlighting, bookmarks, auto-brackets, auto-indentation, auto-save before build, line numbers and selection margin. It also features a class browser that lets you browse, navigate, or visualize the structure of classes, members and functions of projects.
In case of warnings or errors after compilation, double-clicking on the line opens the corresponding editor. QDevelop also features debugging with gdb and allows for the toggling of breakpoints by clicking in the line number on the editor, or by right-clicking. The program automatically displays local variables on output dock when it is stopped on breakpoints.
Furthermore, the software includes the Assistance functions that provide help for the word under the cursor with one click in the editor. The most significant advantage of QDevelop is that it is open source and free.
The latest version of the software released on October 4, 2006, includes improvements such as the Default projects directory can be set in options dialogue. The update also features bookmarks, which can be toggled on menu bar and right-click in margin number or editor, and Console added to CONFIG variable in (.pro) file for new projects to have qDebug() written on debug console under Windows.
Lastly, QDevelop now includes Polish, Spanish, Chinese, and Russian translations, and it can be built using cmake (experimental!). In summary, QDevelop is an excellent software tool that developers can use for their Qt projects.
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