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GPS provides several levels of customization, from simple preferences dialog
to powerful scripting capability through the python language.
This chapters describes each of these capabilities.
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Edit->Preferences, allows you to
modify the global preferences of GPS.
To enable the new preferences, you simply need to confirm by pressing
the OK button. To test your changes, you can use the Apply
button. Pressing the Cancel button will undo all your changes.

Each preference is composed of a label displaying the name of the preference, and an editing area to modify its value. If you leave to mouse over the label, a tool tip will be displayed giving an on-line help on the preference.
The preferences dialog is composed of several areas, accessible through the tabs at the left of the dialog. Each page corresponds to a set of preferences.
This page allows you to quickly change the current settings for GPS, including preferences, key bindings, menus.... See 15.2 GPS Themes for more information on themes. It is only displayed when there are themes registered.
When this preference is enabled, you can navigate through the menus, and type the key binding you want to associate to a particular item. To remove a key binding, use the Backspace key. Your changes will be saved when GPS exits, in a file called `$HOME/.gps/custom_keys'. In particular, this means that if for some reason you need to edit the file manually, you need to do it outside of GPS, or save the file under a different name, and rename it after exiting GPS.
By default, GPS will call gnatmake to build projects containing Ada sources,
meaning that non Ada sources won't be built. By enabling this preference,
a multi-language build tool, called gprmake will be called.
Note that this tool is still under development, so this option should
only be activated with caution.
This section specifies preferences that apply to the Multiple Document Interface described in 4. Multiple Document Interface.
If False, the title bar is not displayed, to save space on the screen. The tabs of the notebooks will then be highlighted.
{}[]()
Each modified file is saved under a file called .#filename#, which is
removed on the next explicit save operation.
Never
Automatic
Always
xterm -geo 80x50 -exe vi +%l %f |
The following substitutions are provided:
%l
%c
%f
%e
%p
%%
variable1,
variable2,
variable3 : Integer;
|
case Value is
when others =>
null;
end case;
|
If this preference is set to Non_Rm_Style, this would be indented as:
case Value is when others => null; end case; |
By default (Automatic), GPS will choose to indent with an extra
level or not based on the first when construct: if the first
when is indented by an extra level, the whole case statement will
be indented following the RM style.
Unchanged will keep the casing as-is;
Upper will change the casing of all reserved words to upper case;
Lower will change the casing to lower case;
Mixed will change the casing to mixed case (all characters to
lower case except first character and characters after an underscore
which are set to upper case);
Smart_Mixed As above but do not force upper case characters to
lower case.
<=, :=, =>, ...)
Consider the following code:
Variable : constant String := "a string"; |
If this preference is enabled, it will be indented as follows:
Variable : constant String :=
"a string";
|
Note that in this mode under Windows, the Debug->Interrupt menu
will not interrupt the debugged program. Instead, you need to hit
Ctrl-C in the separate execution window to interrupt it while it is
running. On Windows this separate execution window uses the default
system-wide console properties (the size of the window, the
colors...). It is possible to change those properties using the
default console menu (top-left of the console) on Windows XP or using
the control panel on Windows NT.
If false, no execution window will be created. The debugger assumes that the program being debugged does not require input, or that if it does, input is handled outside GPS. For example, when you attach to a running process, this process already has a separate associated terminal.
rsh -l user
rcp -l user
This program is required under Unix systems in order to print, and is set to
a2ps by default.
If a2ps is not installed on your system, you can download it
from www.inf.enst.fr/~demaille/a2ps
Under Windows systems, this program is optional and is empty by default, since a built-in printing is provided. An external tool will be used if specified, such as the PrintFile freeware utility available from www.lerup.com/printfile/descr.html
Note that in order to perform visual comparison between files, GPS
needs to call external tool (not distributed with GPS) such as diff
or patch. These tools are usually found on most unix systems, and
may not be available by default on other OSes. Under Windows, you can
download them from one of the unix toolsets
available, such as msys (http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml) or
cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com).
-c nor -u switch).
Arguments of interest may include (this will depend on the version of diff
used):
This command should be compatible with the GNU patch utility.
GPS assumes that the following restricitions are true when the preference is activated. If this isn't the case, no error is reported, and only minor drawacks will be visible in GPS (no detection that two files are the same if one of them is a symbolic link for instance, although GPS will still warn you if you are trying to overwrite a file modified on the disk).
The restrictions are the following:
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15.2.1 The Emacs Theme
GPS provides an extensive support for themes. Themes are predefined set of value for the preferences, for the key bindings, or any other configurable aspect of GPS.
For instance, color themes are a convenient way to change all colors in GPS at once, according to predefined choices (strongly contrasted colors, monochrome,...). It is also possible to have key themes, defining a set of key bindings to emulate e.g. other editors.
Any number of themes can be activated at the same time through the
preferences dialog (Edit->Preferences). This dialog contains a list
of all themes that GPS knows about, organized into categories for convenient
handling. Just click on the buttons on the left of each theme name to activate
that theme.
Note that this will immediately change the current preferences settings. For
instance, if the theme you just selected changes the colors in the editor,
these are changed immediately in the Editor->Fonts & Colors. You can
of course still press Cancel to keep your previous settings
If multiple themes are active at the same time and try to override the same preferences, the last theme which is loaded by GPS will override all previously loaded themes. However, there is no predefined order in which the themes are loaded.
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The Emacs Theme, which is provided by default with GPS, defines a number of key bindings similar to Emacs.
control-c n
control-k
control-d
control-t
control-x control-s
control-a
control-e
alt-less
control-c control-d
control-c o
control-y
alt-w
control-w
shift-control-underscore
control-x k
control-x control-c
control-s
control-x 3
control-x 2
control-x o
control-l
alt-backspace
alt-right
alt-left
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The key manager is accessible through the menu Edit->Key Shortcuts.
This dialog provides an easy way to associate key shortcuts with actions.
These actions are either predefined in GPS, or defined in your own
customization files, as documented in 15.4 Customizing through XML files.
It also provides an easy way to redefine the menu shortcuts.

Actions are referenced by their name, and are grouped into categories. These
categories indicate when the action applies. For instance, the indentation
command only applies in source editors, whereas the command to change the
current window applies anywhere in GPS. The categories correspond in fact to
filters that indicate when the action can be executed. You can create your own
new categories by using the <filter> tag in the customization files
(see section 15.4 Customizing through XML files).
Through the key manager, you can define key bindings similar to what Emacs
uses (control-x followed by control-k for instance). To register
such key bindings, you need to press the Grab button as usual, and then
type the shortcut. The recording of the key binding will stop a short while
after the last key stroke.
If you define complex shortcuts for menus, they will not appear next to the menu name when you select it with the mouse. This is expected, and is due to technical limitations in the graphical toolkit that GPS uses.
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You can customize lots of capabilities in GPS using XML files that are loaded by GPS at start up.
For example, you can add items in the menu and tool bars, as well as defining new key bindings, new languages, new tools, ...
XML files are found through three mechanisms, described here in the order in
which they are searched. Files with the `.xml' extension found through
GPS_CUSTOM_PATH or the user's directory can override any setup found in
the system directory. Likewise, files found in the user's directory can
override any file found in the GPS_CUSTOM_PATH directories.
Note that only files with the `.xml' extension are considered, other files are ignored.
The `INSTALL/share/gps/customize' directory, where `INSTALL' is the name of the GPS installation directory, should contain the files that will always be loaded whenever GPS is started, by any user on the system.
GPS_CUSTOM_PATH
This environment variable can be set before launching GPS. It should contain a list of directories, separated by semicolons (';') on Windows systems and colons (':') on Unix systems. All the files found in these directories will be searched for customization files.
This is a convenient way to have project-specific customization files. You can for instance create scripts, or icons, that set the appropriate value for the variable and then start GPS. Depending on your project, this allows you to load specific aliases which do not make sense for other projects.
The directory `$HOME/.gps/customize' on Unix
systems, and `%HOME%\.gps\customize' on Windows systems, can also contain
customization files which are parsed at startup. This is a convenient way for
users to define their own customization, that they want to load no matter which
project they are working on. Note that you can use the environment variable
GPS_HOME to override the value of the HOME variable.
Alternatively, if none of HOME and GPS_HOME are defined,
USERPROFILE is also considered.
XML files must be utf8-encoded by default. In addition, you can specify any
specific encoding through the standard <?xml encoding="..." ?>
declaration, as in the following example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> <submenu> <title>encoded text/title> </submenu> |
Any given XML file can contain customization for various aspects of GPS, mixing aliases, new languages or menus,... in a single file. This is a convenient way to distribute your customization to other users.
These files must be valid XML files, i.e. must start with the
<?xml?> tag, and contain a single root XML node, the name of which is
left to your consideration. The general format is therefore
<?xml version="1.0" ?> <root_node> ... </root_node> |
The list of valid XML child nodes that can be specified under <root> is described in later sections. It includes:
<action>
<key>
<submenu>
<pref>
<preference>
<alias>
<language>
<button>
<entry>
<vsearch-pattern>
<tool>
<filter>
<contextual>
<case_exceptions>
<documentation_file>
<stock>
<project_attribute>
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This facility distinguishes the actions from their associated menus or key bindings. Actions can take several forms: external commands, shell commands and predefined commands, as will be explained in more details below.
The general form to define new actions is to use the <action> tag.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
output (optional)
<shell> and <external> tags,
See section 15.5.4.5 Redirecting the command output.
show-command (optional)
This attribute can be overridden for each command.
If you are defining the same action multiple times, the last definition will be kept. However, existing menus, buttons,... that already reference that action will keep their existing semantic. The new definition will only be used for all new menus created from that point on.
The <action> can have one or
several children, all of which define a particular command to execute. All
of these commands are executed one after the other, unless one of them
fails in which case the following commands are not executed.
The following XML tags are valid children for <action>.
<external>
Note for Windows users: like under UNIX, scripts can be called
from custom menu. In order to do that, you must write your script in a
`.bat' or `.cmd' file, and call this file using cmd /c.
Thus, the external tag would look like:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<external_example>
<action name="my_command">
<external>cmd /c c:\.gps\my_scripts\my_cmd.cmd</external>
</action>
</external_example>
|
This tag accepts the following attributes:
show-command (optional)
<action> tag.
output (optional)
<action> tag.
progress-regexp (optional)
The name of the action is printed in the progress bar while the action is executing.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<progress_action>
<action name="progress" >
<external
progress-regexp="(\d+) out of (\d+).*$"
progress-current="1"
progress-final="2"
progress-hide="true">gnatmake foo.adb
</external>
</action>
</progress_action>
|
progress-current (optional)
progress-regexp
that contains the current step.
progress-final (optional)
progress-regexp
that contains the current last step. This last index can grow as
needed. For example, gnatmake will output the number of
the file it is currently examining, and the total number of files to be
examined. However, that last number may grow up, since parsing a new file
might generate a list of additional files to parse later on.
progress-hide (optional)
progress-regexp and are used to compute the progress will
not be displayed in the output console. For any other value of this
attribute, these lines are displayed along will the rest of the output.
<on-failure>
This tag specifies a group of command to be executed if the previous external command fails. Typically, this is used to parse the output of the command and fill the location window appropriately (see section 15.5.4.6 Processing the tool output).
For instance, the following action spawn an external tool, and parses its output to the location window and the automatic fixing tool if the external tool happens to fail.
In this group of commands the %... and $... macros can be used.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<action_launch_to_location>
<action name="launch tool to location" >
<external>tool-path</external>
<on-failure>
<shell>Locations.parse "%1" category<shell>
<external>echo the error message is "%2"</external>
</on-failure>
<external>echo the tool succeeded with message %1</external>
</action>
</action_launch_to_location>
|
<shell>
shell tag. These are command written in one of the
shell scripts supported by GPS.
This tag supports the same show-command and output attributes
as the <action> tag.
The following example shows how to
create two actions to invoke the help interactive command and to open
the file `main.c'.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<help>
<action name="help">
<shell>help</shell>
</action>
<action name="edit">
<shell>edit main.c</shell>
</action>
</help>
|
By default, commands are expected to be written in the GPS shell language.
However, you can specify the language through the lang attribute. Its
default value is "shell".
The value of this attribute could also be "python".
When programming with the GPS shell, you can execute multiple commands by separating them with semicolons. Therefore, the following example adds a menu which lists all the files used by the current file, in a project browser.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<current_file_uses>
<action name="current file uses">
<shell lang="shell">File %f</shell>
<shell lang="shell">File.uses %1</shell>
</action>
</current_file_uses>
|
<description>
<filter>, <filter_and>, <filter_or>
It is possible to mix both shell commands and external commands. For instance, the following command opens an xterm (on Unix systems only) in the current directory, which depends on the context.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<xterm_directory>
<action "xterm in current directory">
<shell lang="shell">cd %d</shell>
<external>xterm</external>
</action>
</xterm_directory>
|
As seen in some of the examples above, some special strings are expanded by GPS just prior to executing the command. These are the "%f", "%d",.. See below for a full list.
More information on chaining commands is provided in See section 15.5.4.1 Chaining commands.
Some actions are also predefined in GPS itself. This include for instance
aliases expansion, manipulating MDI windows,... All known actions (predefined
and the ones you have defined in your own customization files) can be
discovered by opening the key shortcut editor (Edit->Key shortcuts menu).
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When an action is defined, you can use macro arguments to pass to your shell or external commands. Macro arguments are special parameters that are transformed every time the command is executed. The following macro arguments are provided.
The equivalent python command is given for all tests. These commands are useful when you are writing a full python script, and want to test for yourself whether the context is properly defined.
%f
Python equivalent:
import os.path os.path.basename (GPS.current_context().file().name()) |
%F
Python equivalent:
GPS.current_context().file().name() |
%d
Python equivalent:
GPS.current_context().directory() |
%p
Python equivalent:
GPS.current_context().project().name() |
%P
Python equivalent:
GPS.Project.root().name() |
%pp
Python equivalent:
GPS.current_context().project().file().name() |
%PP
Python equivalent:
GPS.Project.root().file().name() |
%pps
%pp, except it returns the project name prepended
with -P, or an empty string if there is no project file selected and the
current source file doesn't belong to any project. This is mostly for use with
the GNAT command line tools.
Python equivalent:
if GPS.current_context().project(): return "-P" & GPS.current_context().project().path() |
%PPs
%PP, except it returns the project name prepended
with -P, or an empty string if the root project is the default project.
This is mostly for use with the GNAT command line tools.
%(p|P)[r](d|s)[f]
P
p
r
d
Python equivalent:
GPS.current_context().project().source_dirs() |
s
Python equivalent:
GPS.current_context().project().sources() |
f
%Ps
%prs
%prdf
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By default, an action will execute in any context in GPS. The user just selects the menu or key, and GPS tries to execute the action.
It is possible to restrict when an action should be considered as valid. If the current context is incorrect for the action, GPS will not attempt to run anything, and will display an error message for the user.
Actions can be restricted in several ways:
For instance, if you have specified %F as a parameter to one of the
commands, GPS will check prior to running the action that there is a current
file. This can be either a currently selected file editor, or for instance that
the project explorer is selected, and a file node inside it is also selected.
You do not have to specify anything else, this filtering is automatic
<filter>, <filter_and>
and <filter_or> tags, see below.
These tags can be used to further restrict when the command is valid. For instance, you can use them to specify that the command only applies to Ada files, or only if a source editor is currently selected.
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Such filters can be defined in one of two places in the customization files:
<action>, <menu> or
<button> tags, you can define named filters. These are general filters,
that can be referenced elsewhere without requiring code duplication. They
also appear explicitly in the key shortcuts editor if at least one action is
depending on them.
<action> tag
Such filters are anonymous, although they provide exactly the same capabilities
as the ones above. These are mostly meant for simple filters, or filters that
you use only once, or don't want to appear in the key shortcuts manager.
There are three different kinds of tags:
<filter>
<filter_and>
<filter>, <filter_and>
and <filter_or>.
<filter_or>
<filter>,
<filter_and> and <filter_or>.
If several such tags are found following one another under an <action>
tag, they are combined through "or", i.e. any of the filters may match for the
action to be executed.
The <filter>, <filter_and> and <filter_or> tags accept the
following set of common attributes:
name (optional)
id attribute. The name can
take any form. This is also the name that appears in the context of the
key shortcuts editor.
error (optional)
<filter_and> and <filter_or>, only the error message of
the top-level filter will be printed.
In addition, the <filter> has the following specific attributes:
id (optional)
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<test_filter>
<filter name="Test filter" language="ada" />
<action name="Test action" >
<filter id="Test filter" />
<shell>pwd</shell>
</action>
</test_filter>
|
A number of filters are predefined by GPS itself. The full list appears in the key shortcut editor, and is listed here:
Source editor
language (optional)
ada,
you must have an Ada file selected, or the action won't execute. The language
for a file is found by GPS following several algorithms (file extensions, and
via the naming scheme defined in the project files).
shell_cmd (optional)
Note that currently no expansion of macro arguments (%f, %p,...) is done in this command.
shell_lang (optional)
module (optional)
The list of module names can be obtained by typing lsmod in the shell
console at the bottom of the GPS window.
This attribute is mostly useful when creating new contextual menus.
When several attributes are specified for a <filter> node (which is not
possible with id), they must all match for the action to be executed.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!-- The following filter will only match if the currently selected
window is a text editor editing an Ada source file -->
<ada_editor>
<filter_and name="Source editor in Ada" >
<filter language="ada" />
<filter id="Source editor" />
</filter_and>
<!-- The following action will only be executed for such an editor -->
<action name="Test Ada action" >
<filter id="Source editor in Ada" />
<shell>pwd</shell>
</action>
<!-- An action with an anonymous filter. It will be executed if the
selected file is in Ada, even if the file was selected through
the project explorer -->
<action name="Test for Ada files" >
<filter language="ada" />
<shell>pwd</shell>
</action>
</ada_editor>
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These commands can be associated with menus, tool bar buttons and keys. All of these use similar syntax.
Binding a menu to an action is done through the <menu> and
<submenu> tags.
The <menu> tag takes the following attributes:
action (mandatory)
This attribute can be omitted only when no title is specified for the menu to make it a separator (see below).
before (optional)
after (optional)
before, but has a lower priority. If it
is specified, and there is no before attribute, it specifies a reference
menu after which the new menu should be inserted.
It should also have one XML child called <title> which specifies the
label of the menu. This is really a path to a menu, and thus you can define
submenus by specifying something like "/Parent1/Parent2/Menu" in the title
to automatically create the parent menus if they don't exist yet.
You can define the accelerator keys for your menus, using underscores
in the titles. Thus, if you want an accelerator on the first letter in
a menu named File, set its title as _File.
The tag <submenu> accepts the following attributes:
before (optional)
<menu>
after (optional)
<menu>
It accepts several children, among <title> (which must be specified
at most once), <submenu> (for nested menus), and <menu>.
Since <submenu> doesn't accept the action attribute, you should
use <menu> for clickable items that should result in an action, and
<submenu> if you want to define several menus with the same path.
You can specify which menu the new item is added to in one of two ways:
title attribute of <menu>
<menu> as a child of a <submenu> node
This requires slightly more typing, but it allows you to specify the exact
location, at each level, of the parent menu (before or after an existing
menu).
For example, this adds an item named mymenu to the standard
Edit menu.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<test>
<submenu>
<title>Edit</title>
<menu action="current file uses">
<title>mymenu</title>
</menu>
</submenu>
</test>
|
The following has exactly the same effect:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<test>
<menu action="current file uses">
<title>Edit/mymenu</title>
</menu>
</test>
|
The following adds a new item "stats" to the "unit testing" submenu in "my_tools".
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<test>
<menu action="execute my stats">
<title>/My_Tools/unit testing/stats</title>
</menu>
</test>
|
The previous syntax is shorter, but less flexible than the following,
where we also force the My_Tools menu, if it doesn't exist yet, to
appear after the File menu. This is not doable by using only <menu>
tags. We also insert several items in that new menu
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<test>
<submenu after="File">
<title>My_Tools</title>
<menu action="execute my stats">
<title>unit testing/stats</title>
</menu>
<menu action="execute my stats2">
<title>unit testing/stats2</title>
</menu>
</submenu>
</test>
|
Adding an item with an empty title or no title at all inserts a menu separator. For instance, the following example will insert a separator followed by a File/Custom menu:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<menus>
<action name="execute my stats" />
<submenu>
<title>File</title>
<menu><title/></menu>
<menu action="execute my stats">
<title>Custom</title>
</menu>
</submenu>
</menus>
|
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The actions can also be used to contribute new entries in the contextual menus everywhere in GPS. These menus are displayed when the user presses the right mouse button, and should only show actions relevant to the current context.
Such contributions are done through the <contextual> tag, which takes
one mandatory attribute action, which is the name of the action to
execute, and must be defined elsewhere in one of the customization files.
It accepts one child tag, <Title> which specifies the name of the
menu entry. If this child is not specified, the menu entry will use the name
of the action itself. The title is in fact the full path to the new menu entry.
Therefore, you can create submenus by using a title of the form
"Parent1/Parent2/Menu".
The new contextual menu will only be shown if the filters associated with the action match the current context.
For instance, the following example inserts a new contextual menu which prints the name of the current file in the GPS console. This contextual menu is only displayed in source editors.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<print>
<action name="print current file name" >
<filter module="Source_Editor" />
<shell>echo %f</shell>
</action>
<contextual action="print current file name" >
<Title>Print Current File Name</Title>
</contextual>
</print>
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As an alternative to creating new menu items, you can create new
buttons on the tool bar, with a similar syntax, by using
the <button> tag. As for the <menu> tag, it requires an
action attribute which specifies what should be done when the button
is pressed. The button is not created if no such action was created.
Within this tag, the tag <pixmap> can be used to indicate
the location of an image file (of the type jpeg, png, gif
or xpm) to be used as icon for the button. An empty
<button> tag indicates a separator in the tool bar.
A title can also be specified with <title>. This will be visible only
if the user choses to see both text and icons in the tool bar.
The following example defines a new button:
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<stats>
<button action="execute my stats">
<title>stats</title>
<pixmap>/my_pixmaps/button.jpg</pixmap>
</button>
</stats>
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The <button> tag allows you to create a simple button that the user
can press to start an action. GPS also supports another type of button,
a combo box, from which the user can choose among a list of choices. Such
a combo box can be created with the <entry> tag.
This tag accepts the following arguments:
id (mandatory)
This should be a unique id for this combo box, and will be used later on to refer it, in particular from the scripting languages. It can be any string
label (default is "")
The text of a label to display on the left of the combo box. If this isn't specified, no text will be displayed
on-changed (default is "")
The name of a GPS action to execute whenever the user selects a new value in the combo box. This action is called with two parameters, the unique id of the combo box and the newly selected text respectively.
It also accepts any number of <choice> tags, each of which defines
one of the values the user can choose from. These tags accepts one optional
attribute, "on-selected", which is the name of a GPS action to call when
that particular value is selected.
<action name="animal_changed">
<shell>echo A new animal was selected in combo $1: animal is $2"</shell>
</action>
<action name="gnu-selected">
<shell>echo Congratulations on choosing a Gnu</shell>
</action>
<entry id="foo" label="Animal" on-changed="animal_changed">
<choice>Elephant</choice>
<choice on-selected="gnu-selected">Gnu</choice>
</entry>
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A more convenient interface exists for Python, the GPS.Toolbar class, which gives you the same flexibility as above, but also gives you dynamic control over the entry. See the python documentation.
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All the actions defined above can be bound to specific key shortcuts through
the <key> attribute. As usual, it requires one <action>
attribute to specify what to do when the key is pressed. The name of the
action can start with a '/' to indicate that a menu should be executed
instead of a user-defined action.
This tag doesn't contain any child tag. Instead, its text contents specified
the keyboard shortcut. The name
of the key can be prefixed by control-, alt-, shift- or
any combination of these to specify the key modifiers to apply.
You can also define multiple key bindings similar to Emacs's by separating them
by a space. For instance, control-x control-k means that the user should
press control-x, followed by a control-k to activate the
corresponding action.
Use an empty string to describe the key binding if you wish to deactivate a preexisting binding. The second example below deactivates the standard binding.
<?xml version="1.0" ?> <keys> <key action="expand alias">control-o</key> <key action="Jump to matching delimiter" /> <!-- Bind a key to a menu --> <key action="/Window/Close">control-x control-w</key> </key> |
Multiple actions can be bound to the same key binding. The first one with a filter valid for the current context is executed. If no action with a filter can be executed, then the first action with no filter will be executed.
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GPS has a number of predefined preferences to configure its behavior and its appearance. They are all customizable through the Edit->Preferences menu.
However, you might wish to add your own kind of preferences for your extension modules. This can easily be done through the usual GPS customization files. Preferences are different from project attributes (see section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes), in that the latter will vary depending on which project is loaded by the user, whereas preferences are always set to the same value no matter what project is loaded.
Such preferences are created with the <preference> tag, which takes
a number of attributes.
name (mandatory)
This is the name of the preference, used when the preference is saved by
GPS in the `$HOME/.gps/preferences' file, and to query the value of
a preference interactively through the GPS.Preference class in the
GPS shell or python. There are a few limitation to the form of these names:
they cannot contain space or underscore characters. You should replace the
latter with minus signs for instance.
page (optional, default is "General")
The name of the page in the preferences editor where the preference can be edited. If this is the name of a non-existing page, GPS will automatically create it. If this is the empty string (""), the preference will not be editable interactively. This could be used to save a value from one session of GPS to the next, without allowing the user to alter it.
Subpages are references by separating pages name with colons (':').
default (optional, default depends on the type of the preference)
The default value of the preference, when not set by the user. This is 0 for integer preferences, the empty string for string preferences, True for boolean values, and the first possible choice for choice preferences.
tip (optional, default is "")
This is the text of the tooltip that appears in the preferences editor dialog.
label (mandatory)
This is the name of the preference as it appears in the preferences editor dialog
type (mandatory)
This is the type of the preference, and should be one of:
The preference can be True or False.
The preference is an integer. Two optional attributes can be specified for
<preference>, "minimum" and "maximum", which define the range of
valid values for that integer. Default values are 0 and 10 respectively.
The preference is a string, which might contain any value
The preference is a color name, in the format of a named color such as "yellow", or a string similar to "#RRGGBB", where RR is the red component, GG is the green component, and BB is the blue component
The preference is a font
The preference is a string, whose value is chosen among a static list of
possible values. Each possible value is defined in a <choice> child
of the <preference> node.
Here is an example that defines a few new preferences:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<custom>
<preference name="my-int"
page="Editor"
label="My Integer"
default="30"
minimum="20"
maximum="35"
page="Manu"
type="integer" />
<preference name="my-enum"
page="Editor:Fonts & Colors"
label="My Enum"
default="1"
type="choices" >
<choice>Choice1</choice>
<choice>Choice2</choice> <!-- The default choice -->
<choice>Choice3</choice>
</preference>
</custom>
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The values of the above preferences can be queries in the scripting languages:
Preference "my-enum" Preference.get %1 |
val = GPS.Preference ("my-enum").get ()
val2 = GPS.Preference ("my-int").get ()
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You can force specific default values for the preferences in the customization
files through the <pref> tag. This is the same tag that is used by
GPS itself when it saves the preferences edited through the preferences
dialog.
This tag requires on attribute:
name
It accepts no child tag, but the value of the <pref> tag defines the
default value of the preference, which will be used unless the user has
overridden it in his own preferences file.
Any setting that you have defined in the customization files will be overridden by the user's preferences file itself, unless the user was still using the default value of that preference.
This <pref> tag is mostly intended for use through the themes
(see section 15.4.9 Creating themes).
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In addition to the predefined themes that come with GPS, you can create your own themes and share them between users. You can then selectively chose which themes they want to activate through the preferences dialog (see section 15.2 GPS Themes).
Creating new themes is done in the customization files through
the <theme> tag.
This tag accepts a number of attributes:
name (mandatory)
description (optional)
category (optional, default is General)
This tag accepts any other customization tag that can be put in the
customization files. This includes setting preferences (<pref>,
defining key bindings (<key), defining menus (<menu>),...
If the same theme is defined in multiple locations (multiple times in the same customization file or in different files), their effects will be cumulated. The first definition of the theme seen by GPS will set the description and category for this theme.
All the children tags of the theme will be executed when the theme is activated
through the preferences dialog. Although there is no strict ordering in which
order the children will be executed, the global order is the same as for the
customization files themselves: first the predefined themes of GPS, then the
ones defined in customization files found through the GPS_CUSTOM_PATH
directories, and finally the ones defined in files found in the user's
own GPS directory.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<customize>
<theme name="my theme" description="Create a new menu">
<menu action="my action"><title>/Edit/My Theme Menu</title></menu>
</theme>
</customize>
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The search dialog contains a number of predefined search patterns for Ada, C and C++. These are generally complex regular expressions, presented in the dialog with a more descriptive name. This includes for instance "Ada assignment", which will match all such assignments.
You can define your own search patterns in the customization files. This is
done through the <vsearch-pattern> tag. This tag can have a number of
children tags:
<name>
This tag is the string that is displayed in the search dialog to represent the new pattern. This is the text that the user will effectively see, instead of the often hard to understand regular expression.
<regexp>
This tag provides the regular expression to use when the pattern has been selected by the user. Be careful that you must protect reserved XML characters such as '<' and replace them by their equivalent expansion ("<" for this character).
This accepts one optional attribute, named case-sensitive. This
attribute accepts one of two possible values ("true" or "false") which
indicates whether the search should distinguish lower case and upper
case letters. Its default value is "false".
<string>
This tag provides a constant string that should be searched.
Only one of <regexp> and <string> should be provided. If
both exists, the first <regexp> child found is used. If there is
none, the first <string> child is used.
The tag accepts the same optional attribute case-sensitive as
above
Here is a small example on how the "Ada assignment" pattern was defined.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<search>
<vsearch-pattern>
<name>Ada: assignment</name>
<regexp case-sensitive="false">\b(\w+)\s*:=</regexp>
</vsearch-pattern>
</search>
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You can define new languages in a custom file by using the Language
tag. Defining languages gives GPS the ability to highlight the syntax of a
file, explore a file (using e.g. the project explorer), find files
associated with a given language, ...
As described previously for menu items, any file in the `customize' directory will be loaded by GPS at start up. Therefore, you can either define new languages in a separate file, or reuse a file where you already define actions and menus.
The following tags are available in a Language section:
Name
Parent
Ada, C++) or
another custom language, this language will inherit by default all its
properties from this language. Any field explicitly defined for this language
will override the inherited settings.
Spec_Suffix
Extension tag instead.
This tag must be unique.
Body_Suffix
Spec_Suffix, so that the user
can choose to easily go from one file to the other.
This tag must be unique.
Extension
Keywords
Keywords tags can be specified, and will be concatenated
into a single regular expression.
The full grammar of the regular expression can be found in the spec of the file `g-regpat.ads' in the GNAT run time.
Engine
The name can be a full pathname, or a short name. E.g. under most Unix systems
if you specify custom, GPS will look for libcustom.so in
the LD_LIBRARY_PATH run time search path. You can also specify
explicitly e.g. libcustom.so or /usr/lib/libcustom.so.
For each of the following five items, GPS will look for the corresponding
symbol in Engine and if found, will call this symbol when needed.
Otherwise, it will default to the static behavior, as defined by the other
language-related items describing a language.
You will find the required specification for the C and Ada languages
to implement the following functions in the directory
`<prefix>/share/gps/doc/examples/language' of your GPS installation.
`language_custom.ads' is the Ada spec file; `language_custom.h' is
the C spec file; `gpr_custom.ad?' are example files showing a possible Ada
implementation of the function Comment_Line
for the GPS project files (`.gpr' files), or any other Ada-like language;
`gprcustom.c' is the C version of gpr_custom.adb.
Comment_Line
Edit->Un/Comment Lines).
Parse_Constructs
This procedure is used by GPS to implement several capabilities such as listing constructs in the project explorer, highlighting the current block of code, going to the next or previous procedure, ...
Format_Buffer
This procedure is used to implement the auto indentation when hitting the enter key, or when using the format key on the current selection or the current line.
Parse_Entities
Context node described below.
Context
Comment_Start
Comment_End
New_Line_Comment_Start
;|# for comments starting
after a semicolon or after the hash sign.
String_Delimiter
Quote_Character
\ in C).
Constant_Character
Can_Indent
Syntax_Highlighting
Case_Sensitive
Categories
Category nodes,
each describing the characteristics of a given category, with the following
nodes:
Name
Pattern
Keywords node, multiple Pattern tags can be
specified and will be concatenated into a single regular expression.
Index
Here is an example of a language definition for the GPS project files:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Custom>
<Language>
<Name>Project File</Name>
<Spec_Suffix>.gpr</Spec_Suffix>
<Keywords>^(case|e(nd|xte(nds|rnal))|for|is|</Keywords>
<Keywords>limited|null|others|</Keywords>
<Keywords>p(ackage|roject)|renames|type|use|w(hen|ith))\b</Keywords>
<Context>
<New_Line_Comment_Start>--</New_Line_Comment_Start>
<String_Delimiter>"</String_Delimiter>
<Constant_Character>'</Constant_Character>
<Can_Indent>True</Can_Indent>
<Syntax_Highlighting>True</Syntax_Highlighting>
<Case_Sensitive>False</Case_Sensitive>
</Context>
<Categories>
<Category>
<Name>package</Name>
<Pattern>^[ \t]*package[ \t]+((\w|\.)+)</Pattern>
<Index>1</Index>
</Category>
<Category>
<Name>type</Name>
<Pattern>^[ \t]*type[ \t]+(\w+)</Pattern>
<Index>1</Index>
</Category>
</Categories>
<Engine>gpr</Engine>
<Comment_Line>gpr_comment_line</Comment_Line>
</Language>
</Custom>
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GPS provides a mechanism known as aliases. These are defined
through the menu Edit->Aliases.
Each alias has a name, which is generally a short string of characters. When you type them in any textual entry in GPS (generally a source editor, but also entry fields for instance in the file selector), and then press the special activation key (by default control-o, controlled by a preference), this name is removed from the source editor, and replaced by the text you have associated with it.
Alias names may be composed of any character except newlines, but must start with a letter. GPS will jump to the start of each word before the current cursor position, and if the characters between this word start and the cursor position is an alias name, this alias is expanded.

The alias editor is divided into three main parts: on the left side, the list of currently defined aliases is shown. Clicking on any of them will display the replacement text for this alias. If you click again the selected alias, GPS displays a text entry which you can use to rename an existing alias. Alias names must start with a letter. A check button at the bottom selects whether the read-only aliases (i.e. system-wide aliases) should be displayed.
The second part is the expansion text for the alias, at the bottom right corner. This replacement text can used multiple lines, and contain some special text that act as a special replacement. These special texts are highlighted in a different color. You can insert these special entities either by typing them, or by right-clicking in the editor, and select the entity in the contextual menu.
The following special entities are currently defined:
%_
%(name)
%D
%H
%l
%c
%f
%d
%p
%P
%O
You cannot expand an alias recursively when already expanding that alias. For instance, if the alias expansion for procedure contains procedure%O, the inner procedure will not be expanded.
The indentation as set in the expansion of the alias is preserved when
the alias is expanded. All the lines will be indented the same amount
to the right as the alias name. You can override this default behavior
by selecting the check button Indent source editor after expansion.
In this case, GPS will replace the name of the alias by its expansion,
and then automatically recompute the position of each line with its
internal indentation engine, as if the text had been inserted manually.
The third part of the aliases editor, at the top right corner, lists the parameters for the currently selected alias. Any time you insert a %(name) string in the expansion text, GPS automatically detects there is a new parameter reference (or an old reference has changed name or was removed); the list of parameters is automatically updated to show the current list.
Each parameters has three attributes:
When an alias that contains parameters is expanded, GPS will first display a dialog to ask for the value of the parameters. You can interactively enter this value, which replaces all the %(name) entities in the expansion text.
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The customization files described earlier can also contain aliases definition. This can be used for instance to create project or system wide aliases. All the customization files will be parsed to look for aliases definition.
All these customization files are considered as read-only by GPS, and therefore cannot be edited through the graphical interface. It is possible to override some of the aliases in your own custom files.
There is one specific files, which must contain only aliases definition. This is the file `$HOME/.gps/aliases'. Whenever you edit aliases graphically, or create new ones, they are stored in this file, which is the only one that GPS will ever modify automatically.
The system files are loaded first, and aliases defined there can be overridden by the user-defined file.
These files are standard XML customization files. The specific XML tag to use is <alias>, one per new alias. The following example contains a standalone customization file, but you might wish to merge the <alias> tag in any other customization file.
The following tags are available:
alias
name, which the text to type in the source editor
before pressing control-o.
It has one optional attribute, indent, which, if set to true,
indicate that GPS should recompute the indentation of the newly inserted
paragraph after the expansion.
param
alias node. There is one per
parameter of the alias. They have one mandatory attribute,
name, which is the name to type between %(name) in the
alias expansion text.
They have one optional attribute, environment, which indicates
the default value must be read from the environment variables if it is
set to true.
These tags contain text, which is the default value for the parameter.
text
alias node, whose value is the
replacement text for the alias.
Here is an example of an alias file:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Aliases>
<alias name="proc" >
<param name="p" >Proc1</param>
<param environment="true" name="env" />
<text>procedure %(p) is
%(env)%_
end %(p);</text>
</alias>
</Aliases>
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The project files are required by GPS, and are used to store various pieces of information related to the current set of source files. This includes how to find the source files, how the files should be compiled, or manipulated through various tools,....
However, the default set of attributes that are usable in a project file is limited to the attributes needed by the tool packaged with GPS or GNAT.
If you are delivering your own tools, you might want to store similar information in the project files themselves, since these are a very convenient place to associate some specific settings with a given set of source files.
GPS lets manipulate the contents of projects through XML customization files and script commands. You can therefore add you own typed attributes into the projects, so that they are saved automatically when the user saves the project, and reloaded automatically the next time GPS is started.
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New project attributes can be declared in two ways: either using the advanced
XML tags below, or using the <tool> tag (see section 15.5.3 Defining tool switches).
The customization files support the <project_attribute> tag,
which is used to declare all the new attributes that GPS should expect
in a project. Attributes that have not been declared explictly will
not be accessible through the GPS scripting languagues, and will
generate warnings in the Messages window.
Project attributes are typed: they can either have a single value, or have a set of such values (a list). The values can in turn be a free-form string, a file name, a directory name, or a value extracted from a list of preset values.
Attributes that have been declared in these customization files will also be graphically editable through the project properties dialog, or the project wizard. Therefore, you should specify when an attribute is defined how it should be presented to the GPS user.
The <project_attribute> tag accepts the following attributes:
package (a string, default value: "")
This is the package in the project file in which the attribute is stored. Common practice suggests that one such package should be used for each tool. These packages provide namespaces, so that attributes with the same name, but for different tools, do not conflict with each other.
name (a string, mandatory)
This is the name of the attribute. This should be a string with no space, and that represents a valid Ada identifier (typically, it should start with a letter and be followed by a set of letters, digits or underscore characters). This is an internal name that is used when saving the attribute in a project file.
editor_page (a string, default value: "General")
This is the name of the page in the Project Properties editor dialog in which the attribute is presented. If no such page already exists, a new one will be created as needed. If the page already exists, the attribute will be appended at its bottom.
editor_section (a string, default value: "")
This is the name of the section, inside editor page, in which the
attribute is displayed. These sections are surrounded by frames, the
title of which is given by the editor_section attribute.
If this attribute is not specified, the attribute is put in an
untitled section.
label (a string, default value: the name of the attribute)
If this attribute is set to a value other than the empty string
"", a textual label is displayed to the left of the attribute
in the graphical editor. This should be used to identify the
attribute. However, it can be left to the empty string if the
attribute is in a named section of its own, since the title of the
section might be a good enough indication.
description (a string, default value: "")
This is the help message that describes the role of the attribute. It is displayed in a tooltip if the user leaves the mouse on top of the attribute for a while.
list (a boolean, default value: "false")
If this is set to "true", the project attribute will in fact
contains a list of values, as opposed to a single value. This is used
for instance for the list of source directories in standard projects.
ordered (a boolean, default value: "false")
This is only relevant if the project attribute contains a list of values. This indicates whether the order of the values is relevant. In most cases, it will not matter. However, for instance, the order of source directories matters, since this also indicates where the source files will be searched, stopping at the first match.
omit_if_default (a boolean, default value: "true")
This indicates whether the project attribute should be set explicitly
in the project if the user has left it to its default value. This can
be used to keep the project files a simple as possible, if all the
tools that will use this project attribute know about the default
value. If this isn't the case, set omit_if_default to "false"
to force the generation of the project attribute.
base_name_only (a boolean, default value: "false")
If the attribute contains a file name or a directory name, this indicates whether the full path should be stored, or only the base name. In most cases, the full path should be used. However, since GPS automatically looks for source files in the list of directories, for instance, the list of source files should only contain base names. This also increases the portability of project files.
case_sensitive_index (a boolean, default value: "false")
This XML attribute is only relevant for project attributes that are indexed on another one (see below for more information on indexed attributes). It indicates whether two indexes that differ only by their casing should be considered the same. For instance, if the index is the name of one of the languages supported by GPS, the index is case insensitive since "Ada" is the same as "C". However, if the index is the name of a file on Windows, the index is case-insensitive.
hide_in (a string, default value: "")
This XML attribute defines the various context in which this attribute should not be editable graphically. Currently, GPS provides two such contexts ("wizard" and "properties", corresponding to the project creation wizard and the project properties editor). If any of those context is specified in hide_in, then the widget to edit this attribute will not be shown. The goal is to keep the graphical interface simple.
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The type of the project attribute is specified through one or several
child tags of <project_attribute>. The following tags are
recognized.
<string>
This tag indicates that the attribute is made of one (or more if it is a list) strings. This tag accepts the following XML attributes:
default (a string, default value: "")
This gives the default value to be used for the string (and therefore the project attribute), in case the user hasn't overridden it.
type (one of "", "file", "directory", default "")
This indicates what the string represents. In the first case, any value can be used. In the second case, it should represent a file name, although no check is done to make sure the file actually exists on the disk. But GPS will be able to do some special marshalling with the file name. The third case indicates that GPS should expect a directory.
<choice>
This tag can be repeated several times. It indicates one of the valid
values for the attribute, and can be used to provide a static list of
such values. If it is combined with a <string> tag, this
indicates that the attribute can be any string, although a set of
possible values is provided to the user for ease of use.
This tag accepts one optional attribute, "default", which is a
boolean. It indicates whether this value is the default to use for the
project attribute.
If several <choice> tags are used, it is possible that several
of them are part of the default value if the project attribute is a
list, as opposed to a single value.
<shell>
This tag is a GPS scripting command to execute to get a list of valid
values for the attribute. The command should return a list. As for the
<choice> tag, the <shell> tag can be combined with a
<string> tag to indicate that the list of values returned by
the scripting command is only a set of possible values, but that the
project attribute can in fact take any value.
The <shell> tag accepts two attributes:
lang (a string, default value: "shell")
The scripting language in which the command is written. Currently, the only other possible value is "python".
default (a string, default value: "")
The default value that the project attribute takes if the user hasn't overridden it.
In some cases, the type of the project attribute, or at least its
default value, depends on what the attribute applies to. The project
file support this in the form of indexed project attribute. This is
for instance used to specify what should be the name of the executable
generated when compiling each of the main files in the project (ie the
executable name for gps.adb should be gps.exe, the one
for main.c should be myapp.exe, and so on).
Such attributes can also be declared through XML files. In such cases,
the <project_attribute> tag should have one <index>
child, and zero or more <specialized_index> children.
Each of these two tags in turn take one of the already mentioned
<string>, <choice> or <shell> tag.
The <index> tag indicates what other project attribute is used
to index the current one. In the example given above for the
executable names, the index is the attribute that contains the list of
main files for the project.
It accepts the following XML attributes:
attribute (a string, mandatory)
The name of the other attribute. This other attribute must be declared elsewhere in the customization files, and must be a list of values, not a single value.
package (a string, default value: "")
The package in which the index project attribute is defined. This is used to uniquely identify homonym attributes.
The <specialized_index> is used to override the default type of
the attribute for specific values of the index. For instance, the
project files contains an attribute that specify what the name of the
compiler is for each language. It is indexed on the project attribute
that list the languages used for the source files of the project. Its
default value depends on the language ("gnatmake" for Ada, "gcc" for
C, and so on). This attribute accepts requires one XML attribute:
value (a string, mandatory)
This is the value of the attribute for which the type is overriden.
Note that almost all the standard project attributes are defined through an XML file, `projects.xml', which is part of the GPS installation. Check this file to get advanced examples on how to declare project attributes.
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The following example declares three attributes, with a single string as their value. This string represents a file or a directory in the last two cases. You can simply copy this into a `.xml' file in your `$HOME/.gps/customize' directory, as usual.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<custom>
<project_attribute
name="Single1"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests single"
editor_section="Single"
description="Any string">
<string default="Default value" />
</project_attribute>
<project_attribute
name="File1"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests single"
editor_section="Single"
description="Any file" >
<string type="file" default="/my/file" />
</project_attribute>
<project_attribute
name="Directory1"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests single"
editor_section="Single"
description="Any directory" >
<string type="directory" default="/my/directory/" />
</project_attribute>
</custom>
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The following example declares an attribute whose value is a
string. However, a list of predefined possible values is also
provided, as an help for interactive edition for the user. If the
<string> tag wasn't given, the attribute's value would have two
be one of the three possible choices.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<custom>
<project_attribute
name="Static2"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests single"
editor_section="Single"
description="Choice from static list (or any string)" >
<choice>Choice1</choice>
<choice default="true" >Choice2</choice>
<choice>Choice3</choice>
<string />
</project_attribute>
</custom>
|
The following example declares an attribute whose value is one of the languages currently supported by GPS. Since this list of languages is only know when GPS is executed, a script command is used to query this list.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<custom>
<project_attribute
name="Dynamic1"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests single"
editor_section="Single"
description="Choice from dynamic list" >
<shell default="C" >supported_languages</shell>
</project_attribute>
</custom>
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The following example declares an attribute whose value is a set of file names. The order of files in this list matters to the tools that are using this project attribute.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<custom>
<project_attribute
name="File_List1"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests list"
editor_section="Lists"
list="true"
ordered="true"
description="List of any file" >
<string type="file" default="Default file" />
</project_attribute>
</custom>
|
The following example declares an attribute whose value is a set of predefined possible values. By default, two such values are selected, unless the user overrides this default setting.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<custom>
<project_attribute
name="Static_List1"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests list"
editor_section="Lists"
list="true"
description="Any set of values from a static list" >
<choice>Choice1</choice>
<choice default="true">Choice2</choice>
<choice default="true">Choice3</choice>
</project_attribute>
</custom>
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The following example declares an attribute whose value is a string. However, the value is specific to each language (this could for instance be used for the name of the compiler to use for a given language). This is an indexed project attribute. It has two default values, one for Ada, one for C. All other languages have no default value.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<custom>
<project_attribute
name="Compiler_Name"
package="Test"
editor_page="Tests indexed"
editor_section="Single"
<index attribute="languages" package="">
<string default="" />
</index>
<specialized_index value="Ada" >
<string default="gnatmake" />
</specialized_index>
<specialized_index value="C" >
<string default="gcc" />
</specialized_index>
</project_attribute>
</custom>
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The new attributes that were defined are accessible from the GPS scripting languages, like all the standard attributes, see section 15.5.4.3 Querying project switches.
You can for instance access the Compiler_Name attribute we created above with a python command similar to:
GPS.Project.root().get_attribute_as_string ("Compiler_Name", "Test", "Ada")
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You can also access the list of main files for the project, for instance, by calling
GPS.Project.root().get_attribute_as_list ("main")
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A set of case exceptions can be declared in this file. Each case
exception is put inside the tag <word> or <substring>. These
exceptions are used by GPS to set identifiers or keywords case when
editing case insensitive languages (except if corresponding case is
set to Unchanged). see section 15.1 The Preferences Dialog.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<exceptions>
<case_exceptions>
<word>GNAT</word>
<word>OS_Lib</word>
<substring>IO</substring>
</case_exceptions>
</exceptions>
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New documentation can be added in GPS in various ways. This is useful if you want to point to your own project documentation for instance.
The first possibility is to create a new menu, through a <menu> tag
in an XML file, associated with an action that either spawn an external
web browser or calls the internal GPS.Help.browse() shell command.
However, this will not show the documentation in the Help->Contents
menu, which you also might want to do.
To have both results, you should use the <documentation_file> tag
in an XML file. These tags are generally found in the `gps_index.xml'
files, as documented in see section 3.2 Adding New Help Files, but you can in fact
add them in any of your customization files.
The documentation files you display can contain the usual type of html links. In addition, GPS will treat specially links starting with '%', and consider them as script commands to execute instead of file to display. The following example show how to insert a link that will in effect open a file in GPS when clicked by the user
<a href="%shell:Editor.editor g-os_lib.ads">Open runtime file</a> |
The first word after '%' is the name of the language, and the command to execute is found after the ':' character.
The <documentation_file> tag accepts two attributes.
The name of the menu before which the new entry should be inserted. If the
new menu is inserted in some submenus, this tag controls the deeper nesting.
Parent menus are created as needed, but if you wish to control their specific
order, you should create them first with a <menu> tag.
The name of the menu after which the new entry should be inserted.
The <documentation_file> accepts a number of child nodes:
GPS_DOC_PATH.
If this child is omitted, you must specify a <shell> child.
This name can contain a reference to a specific anchor in the html file, using the standard HTML syntax.
<name>file#anchor</name> |
"lang", which is the name of the
language in which the command is written
Help->Contents menu to organize all the
documentation files.
"/". The last part of the
path is the name of the new menu item. If not set, no menu is
displayed for this file, although it will still appear in the
Help->Contents menu
The following example shows how to create a new entry "item" in the Help
menu, that will display `file.html'. The latter is searched in the
GPS_DOC_PATH list of directories.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<index>
<documentation_file>
<name>file.html</name>
<descr>Tooltip text</descr>
<category>name</category>
<menu>/Help/item</menu>
</documentation_file>
</index>
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XML files can be used to define "stock icons". Stock icons are pictures that are identified by their label, and which are used through GPS in various places, such as buttons, menus, toolbars, and so on.
The stock icons must be declared using the tag <icon>, within the global
tag <stock>. The attribute id indicates the label used to identify
the stock icon, and the attribute file points to the file which contains
the actual picture, either in absolute format, or relative to the directory
which contains the XML file.
For a better rendering, icons that are to be used in menus and buttons should have a size of 24x24 pixels, whereas icons used in toolbars should be 48x48 pixels.
Here is an example:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<my_visual_preferences>
<stock>
<icon id="myproject-my-picture" file="icons/my-picture.png" />
</stock>
</my_visual_preferences>
|
Note: as shown in the example above, it is a good practice to prefix the label
by a unique name (e.g. myproject-), in order to make sure that
predefined stock icons will not get overridden by your icons.
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15.5.1 Defining supported languages 15.5.2 Defining default command line 15.5.3 Defining tool switches 15.5.4 Executing external tools
GPS has built-in support for external tools. This feature can be used to support a wide variety of tools (in particular, to specify different compilers). Regular enhancements are done in this area, so if you are planning to use the external tool support in GPS, check for the latest GPS version available.
Typically, the following things need to be achieved to successfully use a tool:
Each of these points is discussed in further sections. In all these cases, most
of the work can be done statically through XML customization files.
These files have the same format as other XML customization files
(see section 15.4 Customizing through XML files), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
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This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
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| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
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This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
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It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
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The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line and column attributes. It groups any
number of children, each of which is associated with its own switch. However,
only one of the children can be selected at any given time.
The children must have the tag radio-entry. This tag accepts the
attributes label, switch and tip. As a special case,
the switch attribute can have an empty value ("") to indicate this is the
default switch to use in this group of radio buttons.
<field>
line, column, label, switch,
separator and tip attributes. This tag describes a text edition
field, which can
contain any text the user types. This text will be prefixed by the value of
the switch attribute, and the separator (by default nothing). If no text
is entered in the field
by the user, nothing is put on the command line.
This tag accepts two extra attributes:
as-directory (optional)
as-file (optional)
as-directory, but opens a dialog to
select a file instead of a directory. If both attributes are set to "true",
the user will select a file.
<combo>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, noswitch, separator and nodigit attributes.
The text inserted in the command line is the text from the switch
attribute, concatenated with the text of the value attribute for the
currently selected entry. If the value of the current entry is the same
as that of the nodigit attribute, then only the text of the
switch attribute is put on the command line. This is in fact necessary
to interpret the gcc switch "-O" as "-O1".
If the value of the current entry is that of the noswitch attribute,
then nothing is put in the command line.
The tag <combo> accepts any number of combo-entry children tags,
each of which accepts the label and value attribute.
<popup>
line, column, label, lines
and columns attributes. This displaych ca), and the tool descriptions are found in
<tool> tags.
This tag accepts the following attributes:
name (mandatory)
package (Default value is ide)
See also See section 15.4.14 Defining project attributes, for more information on defining your own project attributes. Using the "package", "attribute" or "index" XML attributes of <tool> will implicitly create new project attributes as needed.
If this attribute is set to "ide", then the switches cannot be set for a specific file, only at the project level. Support for file-specific switches currently requires modification of the GPS sources themselves.
attribute (Default value is default_switches)
index (Default value is the tool name)
This tag accepts the following children, described in separate sections:
<switches>
<language>
<default-cmd-line>
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This is the language to which the tool applies. There can be from no to any
number of such nodes for one <tool> tag.
If no language is specified, the tool applies to all languages. In particular, the switches editor page will be displayed for all languages, no matter what languages they support.
If at least one language is specified, the switches editor page will only be displayed if that language is supported by the project.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My Tool" >
<language>Ada</language>
<language>C</language>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
It is possible to define the command line that should be used for a tool when the user is using the default project, or hasn't overridden this command line in the project.
This is done through the <initial-cmd-line> tag, as a child of the
<tool> tag. Its value is the command line that would be passed to the
tool. This command line is parsed as usual, e.g. quotes are taken into account
to avoid splitting switches each time a space is encountered.
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<my_tool>
<tool name="My tool" >
<initial-cmd-line>-a -b -c</initial-cmd-line>
</tool>
</my_tool>
|
| [ < ] | [ > ] | [ << ] | [ Up ] | [ >> ] | [Top] | [Contents] | [Index] | [ ? ] |
The user has to be able to specify which switches to use with the tool. If the tool is simply called through custom menus, you might want to hard code some or all of the switches. However, in the general case it is better to use the project properties editor, so that project-specific switches can be specified.
This is what GPS does by default for Ada, C and C++. You can find in the GPS installation directory how the switches for these languages are defined in an XML file. These provide extended examples of the use of customization files.
The switches editor in the project properties editor provides a powerful interface to the command line, where the user can edit the command line both as text and through GUI widgets.
The switches are declared through the <switches> tag in the
customization file, which must be a child of a <tool> tag as described
above.
This <switches> tag accepts the following attributes:
lines (default value is 1)
columns (default value is 1)
separator (default value is "")
" " rather than " ",
since XML parser must normalize the latter to the empty string when reading
the XML file.
This <switches> tag can have any number of child tag, among the
following. They can be repeated multiple times if you need several check boxes.
For consistency, most of these child tags accept attributes among the
following:
line (default value is 1)
lines above.
column (default value is 1)
columns above.
label (mandatory)
switch (mandatory)
combo and spin below.
This switch shouldn't contain any space.
tip (default value is empty)
min (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the minimum
value authorized for that switch.
max (default value is 1)
<spin> tags, and indicates the maximum
value authorized for that switch.
default (default value is 1)
<spin> tags. See the description below.
noswitch (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
nodigit (default is empty)
<combo> tags, and described below.
value (mandatory)
<combo-entry> tags.
separator (default is the value given to <switches>
<switches>.
Here are the valid children for <switches>:
<title>
line and column attributes, is used
to give a name to a specific frame.
The value of the tag is the title itself. You do not have to specify
a name, and this can be left to an empty value.
Extra attributes for <title> are:
line-span (default value is 1)
column-span (default value is 1)
<check>
line, column, label, switch
and tip attributes. It creates a toggle button. When the latter is
active, the text defined in the switch attribute is added as is
to the command line. This tag doesn't have any value or child tags.
<spin>
line, column, label, switch,
tip, min, max, separator and default
attributes.
This switch will add the contents of the switch attribute followed by
the current numeric value of the widget to the command line. This is typically
used to indicate indentation length for instance.
If the current value of the widget is equal to the default attribute,
then nothing is added to the command line.
<radio>
line