Questions about IDE's for Linux.

[GARRETT1]

Hi Folks,

If I wanted to develop in C/C++, is there a "WindowBuilder" type of plugin (screen designer with widgets) for Eclipse?

Also, is there an easy way to install GTK+/GTK? Like, is there an 'installer' program somewhere?

[The Muffin Man]

I can't speak to the "Window Builder".
However, I write C/C++ code with NetBeans, gtk+ and gdb. All found in synaptic.

[GARRETT1]

I can't speak to the "Window Builder".
However, I write C/C++ code with NetBeans, gtk+ and gdb. All found in synaptic.

Thanks bud, I haven't looked into NetBeans yet... I will check it out!

[GARRETT1]

I can't speak to the "Window Builder".
However, I write C/C++ code with NetBeans, gtk+ and gdb. All found in synaptic.

Thanks bud, I haven't looked into NetBeans yet... I will check it out!

Can you show me an easy way to get the C/C++ plug-ins for NetBeans? I've got version 10 installed on Linux/Mint/Cinnamon. But, I don't see any references to C/C++ off of 'Tools' or anywhere else... If I go to Apache's website, it looks like the most recent version of NetBeans is 19?

[GARRETT1]

Well, I did uninstall vers. 10 and installed 19 instead. It does have some C/C++ plugin in there. But, I don't see any widgets/buttons, etc., for creating GUI screeens, with drag-and-drop capability... It looks like this is not a full IDE for C anyway... Let me know if there is a way to get a GUI designer in here...

[rossdv8]

I don;t do ANY development these days, but I still keep some of my later web stuff (but nothing of java or C for quite a few years).

However out of curiosity I had a quick look for Eclipse stuff. You might find something in amongst the stuff they talk about here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... or+eclipse

Then again you might not. If you do though, there's a chance it will be 'reasonably' current.

This one for example, talks about adding 'Window Builder' to Eclipse once that has been installed. That might probably give you the dragon droppings you were looking for . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HChmKwOUzw

[GARRETT1]

I don;t do ANY development these days, but I still keep some of my later web stuff (but nothing of java or C for quite a few years).

However out of curiosity I had a quick look for Eclipse stuff. You might find something in amongst the stuff they talk about here:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... or+eclipse

Then again you might not. If you do though, there's a chance it will be 'reasonably' current.

This one for example, talks about adding 'Window Builder' to Eclipse once that has been installed. That might probably give you the dragon droppings you were looking for . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HChmKwOUzw

I'm pretty sure that Eclipse only has WindowBuilder for the Java version. If you install the C/C++ version of Eclipse, it doesn't have any widgets or a GUI screen builder. NetBeans looks like it doesn't have a GUI screen builder either, for C/C++.

[The Muffin Man]

I can't speak to the "Window Builder".
However, I write C/C++ code with NetBeans, gtk+ and gdb. All found in synaptic.

Thanks bud, I haven't looked into NetBeans yet... I will check it out!

Can you show me an easy way to get the C/C++ plug-ins for NetBeans? I've got version 10 installed on Linux/Mint/Cinnamon. But, I don't see any references to C/C++ off of 'Tools' or anywhere else... If I go to Apache's website, it looks like the most recent version of NetBeans is 19?

I installed NetBeans from https://netbeans.apache.org/
I believe the C/C++ is already included. If not, you can load it through the Tools->Plugins menu option.

[GARRETT1]

I do have NetBeans installed. Got it from the same link you have there. I installed the only C plugin I could find. Wrote a little C program. But, I don't see any GUI screen builder with drag-n-drop widgets... Still haven't found out if it will compile my program... I see a 'Run' button, but that doesn't compile the program.

[The Muffin Man]

I do have NetBeans installed. Got it from the same link you have there. I installed the only C plugin I could find. Wrote a little C program. But, I don't see any GUI screen builder with drag-n-drop widgets... Still haven't found out if it will compile my program... I see a 'Run' button, but that doesn't compile the program.

I can't speak to the "Window Builder".

[GARRETT1]

NetBeans doesn't have "WindowBuilder". That's Eclipse. And Eclipse only has it for JAVA, not C, as far as I can tell. Have you any experience with a GUI screen designer in C/C++? Like with Apache NetBeans?

[dave0808]

I've not done any GUI work in C/C++ for a loooong time and even then it was hand-crafted.

I would imagine if such a thing exists for any of the main IDEs, it will be referenced by which ever toolkit/framework you want to use (Gtk, Qt, KDE etc). With that in mind, there may be much more information on the websites for those frameworks.

As an aside, the Eclipse GUI Builder for Java uses the Swing toolkit (or used too when I last looked), where as the "standard" is supposed to be Java-FX nowadays, which can be styled with a version of CSS.

[8 ball]

I would imagine if such a thing exists for any of the main IDEs, it will be referenced by which ever toolkit/framework you want to use (Gtk, Qt, KDE etc). With that in mind, there may be much more information on the websites for those frameworks.

Dave's answer is on-point. Forget Swing or JavaFX for C/C++ dev - they're designed for use with Java.

Qt is pretty nice and if you want to go the Qt route, QtCreator is free and will give you a nice IDE with a built in GUI designer.
Visual Studio Code has plugins for Avalonia UI I believe if you want to use that toolkit - although it can take a bit to set VS code up with the right plugins to get decent functionality.

If you've got money to spend, Jetbrains Ryder is the gold standard IDE on Linux and will most likely do whatever you want. It's on par with Visual Studio (full version.)

I found Eclipse pretty poor when I tried it.

[Drugwash]

You can build a Gtk3 GUI using Glade 3.22 (official page only offers a Flatpak version but there may be a classic package in Mint). However I remember reading that interfacing C/C++ code with Builder code may be a tad difficult.
I use Glade-designed GUIs with Python, it works fairly well for me.

Indeed it all depends which desktop you're targeting most as a Qt interface might require a lot of dependencies in Mint, for example, compared to Gtk which is native to Mint. Maybe wxWidgets and CodeLite IDE would be the way to go for cross-platform code.

[tortellini88]

I mean there are several, Atom was one of my personal favorites for simple things but now I use VSCode.

Some more general IDE's are
Atom
VSCode
SublimeText (kind of?)
brackets.io
Komodo IDE
https://linuxman.co/linux-software/best ... ternative/

Some more geared towards Python but can be used for other languages, too.
Spyder
JetBrains IDE's
PyCharm
https://linuxman.co/linux-software/best ... y-in-2022/

My personal Go-To's are JetBrains stuff (if its free to use), VSCode of course and in some instances Komodo. But a lot of these are worth a try, idk if there's a "good" one, just whatever works for you.

[BwingBob]

Hi Folks,

If I wanted to develop in C/C++, is there a "WindowBuilder" type of plugin (screen designer with widgets) for Eclipse?

Also, is there an easy way to install GTK+/GTK? Like, is there an 'installer' program somewhere?

It's not really a plugin for Eclipse but you might take a look at wxFormBuilder https://github.com/wxFormBuilder/wxFormBuilder.

I have not used it for C/C++, mostly Python. The work flow is to build the base of your gui using the Builder, dump the source code for the design. In your application you derive your gui from the classes in the builder code and add your application logic to this derived class. This workflow allows you to modify the design without wiping out your application logic.

I prefer wxBuilder over Glade because the output is the actual source code to build the widgets, not XML to be used by some builder object. Since your code classes are derived from the classes in the builder output, the derived class is free to modify almost anything in the base class does not function/look etc. the way you want.

On Linux the underlying widget set is GTK on Windows it's WinForms so everything looks native.

Good luck.
Bob

[GARRETT1]

Hi Folks,

If I wanted to develop in C/C++, is there a "WindowBuilder" type of plugin (screen designer with widgets) for Eclipse?

Also, is there an easy way to install GTK+/GTK? Like, is there an 'installer' program somewhere?

It's not really a plugin for Eclipse but you might take a look at wxFormBuilder https://github.com/wxFormBuilder/wxFormBuilder.

I have not used it for C/C++, mostly Python. The work flow is to build the base of your gui using the Builder, dump the source code for the design. In your application you derive your gui from the classes in the builder code and add your application logic to this derived class. This workflow allows you to modify the design without wiping out your application logic.

I prefer wxBuilder over Glade because the output is the actual source code to build the widgets, not XML to be used by some builder object. Since your code classes are derived from the classes in the builder output, the derived class is free to modify almost anything in the base class does not function/look etc. the way you want.

On Linux the underlying widget set is GTK on Windows it's WinForms so everything looks native.

Good luck.
Bob

Thanks Bob! I'll check into it...