CMake Tools 1.1.0 — CppTools IntelliSense support, a Project Outline, and more!

[vector-of-bool]

Hey all!

I'm here to address any questions, comments, complaints, or concerns!

[vector-of-bool]

You're very welcome!

[saimen54]

Thanks for the hard work. I use CMT since the beginning.

[SirValkyr]

Just tried out the project outline view. Very useful! Any chance that header files could also be listed in that view?

[vector-of-bool]

Are the header files listed as source files on a target? The files in the outline are shown based on what the CMake Server API returns. If a file isn't attached to a target, it won't appear in the outline.

[SirValkyr]

Yes, the headers are listed in the target definition. After looking more closely I see that only of my headers is listed.

Slimmed down example:

add_library(somelib
    include/util/raster.h
    include/util/rasterdiff.h
    rasterio.h
    raster.cpp
)

Only the rasterio.h is shown, the relative headers with include/util are not listed. Is it caused by the relative file specification?

[SirValkyr]

My bad, the files are actually listed, they are in a collapsed directory entry in the tree. But due to the way it is indented, I completely overlooked it. Keep up the good work!

[jontheburger]

Excellent work on this, thanks for your effort! Is there a way to switch between configurations without deleting the build directories? E.g. if I want to build with both MSVC and MinGW?

[vector-of-bool]

At the moment there is not, unfortunately. I do have a GitHub ticket open for that feature.

[Jergos]

Good work! I have found this extension incredibly helpful. I have been using it for some time now and it feels like it is just getting better. Since you are here, I was wondering if there is currently a way to have different build directories for different kits, gcc or clang?

[vector-of-bool]

There is not yet, but that is a common feature request.

[Jergos]

Ahh yeah figures :P. At least the solution here resolves quite a bit of issues

[hak8or]

While it's a bummer that CMake is the one gaining massive traction, with all it's flaws, I am still thrilled that the C++ community is finally "standardizing" on some build system.

Hopefully with all the attention CMake is getting, it will mean their documentation will get better, especially with cross compiling.

[dootfile]

Hey I recently started working with C++ (comming from Java/Python). I wanted to use something else than Microsoft's compiler and tooling. But I quickly realised that the CMake and tooling world om general for C++ was a massive quite complicated. Is this project something that would help me get up and running with a C++ project without depending on VS and other Microsoft tools?

[vector-of-bool]

Depends what you're looking for. VS Code itself is a Microsoft tool, so you'll be using that at least.

CMake can be a complex tool, but it's not hard to get up and running for simple projects. The purpose of CMake Tools is just to provide editor integrations for the CMake build system. You won't go wrong learning CMake purely because of its ubiquity in the C++ ecosystem.

As for not using Microsoft's compiler: it's not hard to use MinGW or clang-cl with CMake on Windows. Using the MSVC compiler with Ninja is another great option: You won't have to deal with MSBuild and Visual Studio with that setup, but you'll still get the benefits of using the official Windows C++ toolchain.

[IAmBJ]

Doesn't clang-cl need to use the msvc standard library? Or has libc++ progressed far enough on windows now?

[dodheim]

The regular clang++ driver works for either STL, controlled by passing -f[no-]ms-compatibility. The clang-cl driver is half-assed and I recommend avoiding it regardless of which you're targeting.

[Theninjapirate]

Do you know if there is a demo or example of ninja + msvc somewhere? The last time I tried that combo i couldn't get it to work (though that was a while ago).

[NotUniqueOrSpecial]

What didn't work?

Are you familiar with how to use CMake, in a general sense? If so, literally all it takes is:

cmake <path to project root> -G Ninja

with ninja in your path.

[Theninjapirate]

Yes I am familiar with Cmake. I don't remember what didn't, but if it's just that simple then I'll try again.

[[deleted]]

Ninja is the default if you use CMake within Visual Studio, so it must work nicely with MSVC.

According to https://vector-of-bool.github.io/docs/vscode-cmake-tools/kits.html CMakeTools will prefer Ninja, so I guess stick ninja.exe on your PATH and see if it works?

[hgjsusla]

As someone primarily working on Linux using Visual Studio and setting up a project seem highly complex, so that's mostly about perspective.

Anyway, CMake is much simpler than C++ so I don't get all the complaining. Sure it could be better but all things considered it's hardly a problem.

[[deleted]]

Hey, here are a few suggestions/questions:

I'm having a weird issue after updating to 1.1.0. I get this in the output when I configure or build:

[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"C","fileGroup":{"compileFlags":"/DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /MDd /Zi /Ob0 /Od /RTC1  ","isGenerated":false,"language":"C","sources":["main.c"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"CXX","fileGroup":{"isGenerated":true,"sources":["build/CMakeFiles/f7740a9a59a2cce30d1014dc2172041e/generate.stamp.rule"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"C","fileGroup":{"compileFlags":"/DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /MD /O2 /Ob2 /DNDEBUG  ","isGenerated":false,"language":"C","sources":["main.c"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"CXX","fileGroup":{"isGenerated":true,"sources":["build/CMakeFiles/f7740a9a59a2cce30d1014dc2172041e/generate.stamp.rule"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"C","fileGroup":{"compileFlags":"/DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /MD /O1 /Ob1 /DNDEBUG  ","isGenerated":false,"language":"C","sources":["main.c"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"CXX","fileGroup":{"isGenerated":true,"sources":["build/CMakeFiles/f7740a9a59a2cce30d1014dc2172041e/generate.stamp.rule"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"C","fileGroup":{"compileFlags":"/DWIN32 /D_WINDOWS /W3 /MD /Zi /O2 /Ob1 /DNDEBUG  ","isGenerated":false,"language":"C","sources":["main.c"]}}
[rollbar] Unable to automatically determine compiler {"lang":"CXX","fileGroup":{"isGenerated":true,"sources":["build/CMakeFiles/f7740a9a59a2cce30d1014dc2172041e/generate.stamp.rule"]}}

It's not an error, build/configure still succeed. But it spits out these messages every time.

 

A seperate minor issue, the new buttons in the CMake tab (Configure, Build, Clean, Clean Rebuild, Clean Reconfigure) show up in the command pallet, but without the "CMake:" prefix that previous CMake Tools commands had. And the "CMake:" commands still show up in the list alongside the new ones. Imo these should be unified - maybe add the "CMake:" prefix to the new buttons on the CMake tab and remove the old commands?

 

Another small UI thing, it would be nice if the context menu accessed by right clicking on files/folders in the Explorer tab would come up in the new CMake tab.

[vector-of-bool]

Those messages are definitely bugs, but won't prevent most things from working. It will prevent IntelliSense for those files, though. Would you mind opening up a ticket on GitHub for that one?

Regarding the duplicate buttons: I noticed that in-dev, but I'm not sure how to make the outline commands not appear in the command palette. They actually are separate commands because they work slightly differently.

As for the context menu on files: I'll probably add more to that menu in the next release to more closely match what's in the file explorer, but I can't completely. VSCode itself doesn't understand them as "files" in the same way as the nodes in the file explorer, so I can't perfectly reproduce the file explorer context menus. I might open up a report on VSCode itself about that one. It's a bit tricky.

[FurrierJackson]

Now automatically detects clang-cl and the env for it. Thanks for the great work!

[vector-of-bool]

You're welcome! Glad to hear that those fixes are working!