OSDev.org

Ok, I've been dying to work on a project other than my OS for a while. I was wondering whether or not people would like a system programming IDE? Something that does asm/C/C++ syntax highlighting,code completion,image file creation, etc. If so, any suggestions on what would be useful in such a program?

Extendible! a lot of people out there would just like a multiple file editor with a docked command line with tabbing (like me)

And some people like every single tool so they can create a universe by clicking the Create Universe toolbar button.

Don't make people program how you want to. let them choose..

oh and also, support choosing between space-tabs and \t-tabs and between windows and *nix line endings.

Seems like a good idea. Though you probably wouldn't have a wide audience. The only audience would pretty much be OS devvers (particularly the ones on these forums) and then they'd have to decide IF they want to use it or not. If you succeed, I'd be happy to give it a try though and it seems like a good idea. It won't be easy though.

This topic has actually been bought up a few times more. People have suggested features like a wizard that will automatically generate interrupt routines and other low-level stuff (even though the "low level stuff" is usually abstracted away pretty early in kernel development).

I might be a bit biased since I'm developing a microkernel so all of my drivers and servers are userspace programs.

People usually loose motivation once they realise that current IDEs have every function (and far more) that they are proposing.

For example, with Visual Studio I have;
- All my drivers, servers, kernel, applications in one nice solution.
- One key to invoke Cygwin's make to build the the solution, update any files in the image, launch VMWare and connect the VS debugger into my kernel.
- Visual Assist refactoring, autocompletion, and more. Same environment I use for all my other programming.

MessiahAndrw wrote: - One key to invoke Cygwin's make to build the the solution, update any files in the image, launch VMWare and connect the VS debugger into my kernel.

I'm pretty excited about this.

How do you invoke a custom compiler and the bigger question: How do you attach the debugger to your kernel in VMware? Do you have any documentation and other stuff about that?

Or did you write an AddIn for Visual Studio to do that?
That's what I wanted to do if I've got some time left, which unfortunately is a bit rare at the moment

I use VS2008 C++.NET express. It has great C highlighting.

I wouldn't mind having a decent inline assembly syntax highlighter with it, but it's not *that* big of a deal. I'd still be interested in the IDE though.

Hi,

While I generally agree that there are a lot of good editors out there that do the job, it may well be an interesting excercise for you - so go ahead! As already mentioned, any IDE should be extendible and of course an IDE specifically for OS Dev should have nice debugging features (easy to tie-in Bochs / Qemu / ...).

One thing I would personally find quite useful in an OS Dev IDE (being a Windows bod) would be something like a disk image creator / editor. Perhaps even the ability to mount the disk image and browse / edit the filesystem. Yes, I know there are tools for that, but having it built in to the IDE would be sort of nice

Alternatively, take an existing editor system (how about taking #Develop or MonoDevelop) as a base system, and adding in language support and plugins for OS Devvers?

Cheers,
Adam

Andy1988 wrote:

MessiahAndrw wrote: - One key to invoke Cygwin's make to build the the solution, update any files in the image, launch VMWare and connect the VS debugger into my kernel.

I'm pretty excited about this.

How do you invoke a custom compiler and the bigger question: How do you attach the debugger to your kernel in VMware? Do you have any documentation and other stuff about that?

Or did you write an AddIn for Visual Studio to do that?
That's what I wanted to do if I've got some time left, which unfortunately is a bit rare at the moment

VMWare Workstation allows you to install a plug-in for Visual Studio that adds a workbar to attach to a VM inside VMWare. You can set a custom compiler like GCC using Build Rules inside Visual Studio, you just turn the standard C/C++ Compiler off, make sure the build rule is active and all new C/C++ files will get GCC assigned to them (at least if you set the build rule op correctly).

Creature wrote:VMWare Workstation allows you to install a plug-in for Visual Studio that adds a workbar to attach to a VM inside VMWare.

That's new... Which VMware version did introduce this? I haven't used VMware for quite some time...

ru2aqare wrote:

Creature wrote:VMWare Workstation allows you to install a plug-in for Visual Studio that adds a workbar to attach to a VM inside VMWare.

That's new... Which VMware version did introduce this? I haven't used VMware for quite some time...

The only VMWare I ever really used that had it was VMWare Workstation 6.5 I believe. While installing, you can select 2 extra options (at least I could on Windows): 'Eclipse Plug-In' and 'Visual Studio Plug-In'.