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drac
Senior Member
Germany
49 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 25 2009 : 1:35:41 PM
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Hi,
I am aware that Whole Tomato supports only Microsoft IDEs, and that other IDEs like C++ Builder are not supported.
Visual Studio 6 was the last native IDE from Microsoft, it was fast and its still used nowadays for this reason. Since Microsoft will never go back to the "old" ways, is it possible to craft Visual Assist on top of Code::Blocks for example?
If Whole Tomato would make public the interfaces needed to be used in Visual Studio 6 mode I guess this can be made. Visual Studio 6 had no managed code, so it would be a matter of loading the Visual Assist dll and instrument it.
code::blocks is used by people compiling code for platfroms where the Microsoft IDE cannot be used, people who would pay for a really good intellisense engine!
Visual Assist has the most powerful C++ intellisense, why not use it with other C++ compilers?
I know there may be NDAs involved here and other solid arguments against it, but from my point of view this would be really cool!
Cheers! |
Edited by - drac on Feb 25 2009 3:11:13 PM |
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accord
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
3287 Posts |
Posted - Feb 25 2009 : 5:23:28 PM
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From Visual C++ blog:
"The IDE team has definitely gotten your feedback, and they're working hard to make VC10's IDE better. We recently got T-shirts with the slogan "10 is the new 6", heh."
http://blogs.msdn.com/vcblog/archive/2007/12/26/just-what-is-this-tr1-thing.aspx
So we don't have to worry about the future 
(If you google to "10 is the new 6", you will got a lot of results.) |
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drac
Senior Member
Germany
49 Posts |
Posted - Feb 26 2009 : 04:58:32 AM
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I have posted a message on Code::Blocks forum http://forums.codeblocks.org/index.php/topic,10169.new.html
I guess this can be achieved without Whole Tomato's help, as a 3rd party solution. Would it violate the Visual Assist's EULA?
I have a valid Visual Assist license, and I will continue to renew it, but can I use Visual Assist in such a way? |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19004 Posts |
Posted - Feb 26 2009 : 09:48:33 AM
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VA works by hooking into the IDE in deep and difficult ways, so adapting it to work on some other IDE will be very difficult indeed.
I am not sure what you are asking for here though. VA does not care what compiler you are using. If you tell VC6 to use a different compiler then this will not effect VA at all.
I am not sure how you do this, before you ask, but I believe it is quite easy, since I have seen other people talk about doing it. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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drac
Senior Member
Germany
49 Posts |
Posted - Feb 26 2009 : 12:19:51 PM
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The idea of having Visual Assist inside an opensource native C++ IDE was mind-boggling.
An by mocking Visual Studio 6 it would have been possible. |
Edited by - drac on Feb 26 2009 12:28:21 PM |
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mwb1100
Ketchup Master
82 Posts |
Posted - Feb 26 2009 : 3:29:29 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by feline
If you tell VC6 to use a different compiler then this will not effect VA at all.
I am not sure how you do this, before you ask, but I believe it is quite easy, since I have seen other people talk about doing it.
I'm not sure if there's a better way to do it, but if you use a makefile project, you can easily have the VC6 IDE drive another compiler. Probably a bit complex to get set up right the first time, but once you have a working makefile, using it for subsequent projects should be a snap.
That should get you all the intellisense goodness that VAX brings to VC6 with the potential for using modern compilers (whether that's a newer version of MSVC being driven by the command line, GCC, or whatever compiler you might want). |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19004 Posts |
Posted - Feb 27 2009 : 08:58:56 AM
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I have a vague memory of seeing people mention this on the codeproject.com message board. They wanted to use VC6 as the IDE, but to use a more modern compiler and STL.
I think someone even said they had used the compiler from the express version of VS2005, but I don't recall anyone explaining how this was done.
drac I still do not understand what you are talking about. Do you mean someone is trying to produce an open source copy of VC6? The copy would have to be *very* close for VA to seamlessly work. I am sure this is possible, but it sounds like a massive amount of work.
Why not just use VC6 + VA for the editor and point it at a different compiler? |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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drac
Senior Member
Germany
49 Posts |
Posted - Feb 27 2009 : 11:12:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by feline
drac I still do not understand what you are talking about. Do you mean someone is trying to produce an open source copy of VC6? The copy would have to be *very* close for VA to seamlessly work. I am sure this is possible, but it sounds like a massive amount of work.
Why not just use VC6 + VA for the editor and point it at a different compiler?
That's what I'm suggesting. A fake Visual Studio 6 environment for Visual Assist. I assumed you guys have everything multi layer designed, thus it would work with all of Microsoft's IDEs, and said to myself how hard can it be? Just a bunch of interfaces.
Actually I use only Visual Studio 2005, 2008 Professional at the office and Visual Studio 2005 Standard at home.
I don't have a copy of Visual Studio 6, I would like to use that support in an native IDE, to be able to compile, debug with GCC 4.3 for example, but only for private projects and own research, playing with the forthcoming C++0x extensions for example.
The only way I could do that would be to buy a SlickEdit license, but I already have a license for Visual Assist :), and I like Visual Assist more. I could write portable C++ code in Visual Studio and then use CMake to compile for other compilers, use logging to debug, etc.
Having a documented way to use Visual Assist would help others integrate it with other IDEs - CodeGear's C++ Builder, code::blocks, Qt Creator.
Visual Assist + GCC and code::blocks is cheaper than Visual Assist + Visual Studio, or than SlickEdit.
It was just an idea of how to promote Visual Assist on other IDEs without having to actually support those IDEs. Have you thought on separating the UI from the actual parsing engine?
Monodevelop is comming to Windows with the forthcoming 2.0 version, also with native debugging support. Monodevelop actually would make more sense than code::blocks, it has Novell to back it up! And still Visual Assist + MonoDevelop would be cheaper than Visual Assist + Visual Studio.
Cheers. |
Edited by - drac on Feb 27 2009 11:13:52 AM |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19004 Posts |
Posted - Feb 27 2009 : 12:59:47 PM
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Speaking as support, supporting the different IDE's is VERY hard! The number of IDE specific problems that I have seen over the years is ample proof of that.
Separating out the various parts of VA has been discussed occasionally. Currently we do not have the spare resources internally to do this. Our next major project is to support VS2010, which is coming.
Also VA has to run around behind the back of the IDE, doing things the way the IDE demands, rather than how we want to do them, so you cannot assume that the code has a nice multi-layered structure. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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Mockup Visual Studio 6
