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<HTML><TITLE>Introducing Motor: a Programming IDE for Linux</TITLE>
<BODY BGCOLOR=White>
<TABLE BORDER=0>
<TR><TD></TD><TD WIDTH="60%">
<H2>What is Motor</H2>
<P align="justify">
Motor is an integrated IDE that works in the console and provides the
developer with a useful mcedit-like editor, front-end to the compiler,
linker, debugger (gdb), concurrent version system (cvs) and other useful
things. It can also generate distribution packages in any format. Almost
everything is done with templates, so any kind of language or
distribution can be added easily.
</P>
<P align="justify">
Some of you may remember RHIDE, another text-mode programming IDE
available for Linux. It had been ported to Linux from DOS where it had
been a part of DJGPP tools. I liked the idea of such an IDE, but I
disliked its DOS habits. For example, to be able to process Alt-Fx keys
it blocked switching local consoles. Well, they could be switched, but
with Alt-Ctrl-Fx. This was the first thing that disturbed me. Also it
took about 80% processor time and the user interface was too heavy to
work on remotely. It lacked internal support for various GNU development
tools a lot of UNIX programmers can't imagine working without. All that
inspired me to write Motor.
</P>
<H2>Getting and Installing Motor</H2>
<P align="justify">
I don't think Motor differs dramatically from other Linux program as to
the installation process. All you need is the tarball or the rpm file,
which can be downloaded from the motor homepage at <A
HREF="http://konst.org.ua/motor/">http://konst.org.ua/motor/</A>
</P>
<P align="justify">
Let's assume the version number is 1.14.19
</P>
<P align="justify">
To install from the tarball do the following:
</P>
<P align="justify"><B>
tar zxvf motor-1.14.19.tar.gz<BR>
cd motor-1.14.19<BR>
./configure<BR>
make<BR>
make install
</B></P>
<P align="justify">
And if you've got the rpm:
</P>
<P align="justify"><B>
rpm -ihv motor-1.14.19-1.Linux-i386.rpm
</B></P>
<H2>"Hello, world!": a Simple Project Using Motor</H2>
<P align="justify">
Now, we will write a simple "Hello, world!" program in C with motor.
Then we'll make a distribution package so the program looked like a real
GNU application.
</P>
<CENTER>
<IMG SRC="images/snapshot01.png"></CENTER><br>
<P align="justify">
What to start with? Of course, by typing 'motor' on the command line to
execute the program. Assuming your project list is empty, the project
creation dialog is displayed. As you can see, it's possible to set
various parameters here. But for the program we'll write, you should
select "from scratch" mode, "terminal program/C" template and set the
project name to "helloworld", for example. The project root directory
will be set in appropriate way then. If you don't like the project files
to be located straight in your home directory, you can change that too.
A little hint. You can choose a directory using the file browser, which
is invoked by Ctrl-T. This key works in all the file/pathname input
lines. Also leave the "GNU standard documentation" and "Generate initial
source" items unchanged. Now, just move cursor to "Create" and press
enter.
</P>
<CENTER><IMG SRC="images/snapshot02.png"></CENTER><br>
<P align="justify">
The list of project files is displayed. Simply select helloworld.cc here
and press Enter. Now we are in the main screen of Motor. The screen
consists of the editor window filling most of it and two bars. In the
top it's a status bar and a messages bar in the bottom. The menu bar
will appear in the top if you press F10. Let's take a quick tour into
the project organisation. All the parameters can be viewed and modified
in the project settings dialog invoked with Shift-F11 key or through the
menu.
</P>
<P align="justify">
With this dialog you can modify parameters of the project such as the
command line options passed to compiler or linker, cvs repository and
some make issues. Also you can get to the list of files and directories.
Now let's select "Files" and see which files were added to our project
on creation. As we set "Generate initial source" and "GNU standard
documentation" options to "yes", our project is already populated with
some files. They are helloworld.c and a set of documentation files in
the "Miscellaneous" folder. To open a file here just move the cursor to
it and press Enter. But, let's continue editing our source code. We can
return to it either by opening helloworld.c from the dialog or closing
the dialog with ESC-ESC.
</P>
<P align="justify">
All we see in the editor window now is a piece of C source generated
from the template. We should remove everything between "{" and "}" to
make the main() function empty. Then we fill it with a single printf
call needed to print out the phrase we want to see ...
</P>
<P align="justify">
printf("Hello, world!\n");
</P>
<P align="justify">
The program source is ready now. What next? We should build the
executable and run it to see how it works. Taking a quick tour though
the menu bar will help you find the key to be used to build a project.
It's F9. If no errors occur (hope, there are no errors in our "Hello,
world" ;), "Compiled successfully" will be written in the line at the
bottom of the screen. That means the executable is ready to run. Press
F12. Voila! Small note. Motor runs the program on separate console so
you should have a free local tty. After execution you can see the
program output by switching to that console. Assuming the first free tty
on our box was /dev/tty9, simply press Alt-F9 and see "Hello, world!"
printed by the program.
</P>
<P align="justify">
No need to explain how to debug "Hello, world!", since such programs
usually don't need it ;) But if you want to try this feature, you can
execute it line-by-line using the F8 key. Other debug-mode keys are
listed in the "Debug" submenu.
</P>
<P align="justify">
But as far as we remember, building an executable is not our final goal.
Now we want to see how it can be easily turned into a real GNU program
that is distributed as tar.gz or rpm packages. In Motor it can be done
with a single dialog. To open it, go to the "Project" menu and select
"Make a package".
</P>
<H3>Generating tar.gz and a configure script</H3>
<CENTER><IMG SRC="images/snapshot03.png"></CENTER><br>
<P align="justify">
Select "tar.gz" as a type of distribution and turn on autoconf usage.
Also we want the binary to be installed to /bin directory with prefix
set to where the user wants it to reside. That means we have to add an
install rule. Every time we select "add" here, we are asked two
questions: file name and destination directory. So, first we enter
"helloworld" and then "$(PREFIX)/bin/". Now, select "Generate". For the
first when no configure.in file exists, motor generates it
automatically. Leave it unchanged if you don't know what to write there.
I strongly suggest you read autoconf info with the "info autoconf"
command to find out how to write configure.in. Then you should revise it
and open the dialog again. Now, everything is ready. After selecting
"Generate" item, the tarball will appear in the specified output
directory.
</P>
<H3>Generating .rpm</H3>
<P align="justify">
This move will be a little more complicated. The point is that rpm
requires a special .spec file. So first you have to invoke the "project
files" dialog with F11 and add helloworld.spec file to the
"Miscellaneous files" folder. If you don't know what to write here, I
suggest you consult the rpm docs. If you have rpm version 4.0, they're
located in /usr/doc/rpm-4.0 or /usr/share/doc/rpm-4.0 directory. When
.spec file is ready open the distribution generation dialog again,
select type .rpm and "Generate".
</P>
<H2>Contributing to Motor Development</H2>
<P align="justify">
As it usually happens with my programs -- any comments, ideas,
bug-reports and patches you make while using Motor, are welcome. Mail
them to <A HREF="mailto:konst@konst.org.ua?subject=motor">me
directly</A>. There is also a section for programs written using Motor
at its homepage. If you don't mind listing your program there, you can
fill out a form and the information will appear on the motor web site.
</P>
<H2>About the author</H2>
<P align="justify">
<IMG SRC="images/konstsm.jpg" ALIGN=LEFT>
Konstantin "konst" Klyagin, lives in Kharkov, Ukraine. He is a 4th year
student of the Kharkov State Polytechnical University, going next year
to get a BS in System Analysis. He currently works as a programmer for
the <A HREF="http://www.nixsolutions.com/">"NIX Solutions"</A> company.
Has got about 10 years overall programming experience. Personal
interests relate to computers, networking, programming, IT, Linux,
digital innovations and also art, painting, history, politics, heavy
music, girls, and having fun. He can be contacted at <A
HREF="mailto:konst@konst.org.ua?subject=motor">konst@konst.org.ua</A>.
Konst's personal site URL is
<A
HREF="http://konst.org.ua/">http://konst.org.ua/</A>.
</P>
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</TABLE>
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