Automake Manager Operation
In this chapter you will find a basic description of the Automake Manager elements and how to use them. This covers:
The Automake Manager Window describes the basic structure of the Automake Manager main window.
The Overall View Window describes the elements of the upper subwindow.
The Detail View Window describes the elements of the lower subwindow.
Navigating in the Automake Manager lists some basic operations you can perform in the Automake Manager.
Popup Menus in the Automake Manager describes the windows which will pop up when you select an action in the Automake Manager.
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The overall view window contains a tree-list of all the directories in your project that contain program files, documentation or data. Each such directory contains a Makefile.am file and is known in Automake Manager as a subproject. There are three typical subprojects in a KDE-based project as shown in the above illustration:
src – source-code files for your application,
doc – your user manual or Handbook,
po – extracts of strings in your source-code files that require translation into other human languages (e.g. window titles, menu names, button labels, dialog box text and messages of various kinds).
Note that the doc subproject always has an en subproject, which you can see if you click on the + symbol next to the word doc. That is because the base language of all documentation in KDE is United States English (en). If your application becomes part of KDE, the KDE translation teams may translate your documentation from United States English into other languages and the translations will go into other subprojects, such as de (German) or fr (French). The strings in the po subproject may also be translated and stored in other files in po, thus allowing your application to be operated by people who do not know English.
The doc and po subprojects serve different purposes. doc contains documentation like a user manual, po contains translatable text strings of the user interface which is integrated in the source code of this application.
The overall view window serves—amongst other things—as a navigation tool. If you select a subproject in the overall view window, the corresponding details will be shown in the detail view window.
The detail view contains a tree-list of all the files in the subproject currently selected in the overall view as well as the compilation, build and installation rules for this subproject. Thus the two views together can give you access to all the components of your application and all the information on how to compile, build and install it.
The tree-list in the detail view has two levels. The top level consists of so-called Automake Manager targets and the next level contains lists of files that go to make up each target.
This concept of an Automake Manager target differs somewhat from what a Makefile target usually is. In short:
The definition of how a set of files is to be compiled, built or installed is known as a target in Automake Manager, but as a variable in Automake itself.
A target in make is often something quite different, being the parameter of a make command (e.g. make install, make clean).
However some Makefile.am variables do represent an underlying sub-target in make.
In both the overall and the detail view you can left-click on the + or - next to a subproject or target name to expand or contract the tree view. If you do that with a subproject in the overall view, it shows or hides the subprojects at the next level down (if any). If you do it with a target in the detail view, it shows or hides the list of files that go into that target.
If you mouse button click on a file name in the detail view, the corresponding file opens up in KDevelop's editing window.
If you mouse button click on the name of a subproject in the overall view or target in the detail view, the name is highlighted and some toolbar buttons become active in the top part of that view.
It is recommended that you use the right mouse-button and popup menus, rather than the toolbar buttons, because it is then much easier to see and understand what you are doing.
Operations on subprojects and targets have far-reaching effects on the structure, compilation, building and installation of your application.
If you mouse button click on the name of a subproject, target or file, a menu pops up and you can then select actions to perform on the subproject, target or file, such as add a target to the subproject, add a file to a target or logically remove the selected file from its target.
The following sections explain in short terms which operations the menus make available which will pop up on right mouse button clicks in the Automake Manager window. They are meant for overall view only. You will find detailed descriptions of most operations in a later chapter.
When you mouse button click on a file name in the detail view the following menu will pop up allowing you to select one of several operations to be performed on that file. In the illustration below the hi-16app-myapp.png icon file was selected from the Icon data in myapp target of the myapp/src subproject.
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When you right-click on a target in the detail view the following menu will pop up allowing you to select one of several operations to be performed on it. In the illustration below the myapp (Program in bin) target of the myapp/src subproject was selected.
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When you mouse button click on a subproject in the overall view window the following menu will pop up which allows you to make major changes to the structure of your project and the way it is compiled, built and installed. You can use it to expand or modify the basic project structure that the Application Wizard has created.
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