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Find in Files could be enhanced

2008-06-02
2012-09-26
  • David McClurg

    David McClurg - 2008-06-02

    I recently tried Dev-C++ 4.9.9.2 and it's cracking good. It feels tight and not bloated. It's fast. It generates a clean Makefile. Thanks for taking the effort and time to make it!!

    I previously tried using notepad++ with mingw and it had a better find-in-files but lacked the nice error capture that dev-c++ includes.

    Missing "Find in Files" features

    • standard shortcut should be Ctrl-Shift-F not Shift-Alt-F. Visual studio and Notepad++ use the standard. Why not Dev-C++?
    • add "Directory" to "Where" options so you can search data and generated files outside "files in project". On large projects, this is very important.
    • when where="Directory", add "file type filter" to filter which types of files are searched.
    • when where="Directory", add option to search "all sub-folders"
    • add regular expressions (not a big deal for me but occasionally it's handy)
    • do you run the search on a separate thread? Might be nice if you are searching large directory trees.

    That's it.

    Thanks,
    David

     
    • cpns

      cpns - 2008-06-03

      This is a user forum. Not a developer forum we didn't 'make it'.

      Did you consider Eclipse with CDT (perhaps the EasyEclipse for C/C++ distribution)? Personally I hate it, but it is a more functional IDE than Dev-C++.

      There is an RFE link at the top of the forum which is the place for these requests. Don't hold your breath, there has been no work on Dev-C++ for a long time, and I have already suggested Regular Expressions a long time ago. It has rather had the rug pulled from under it by Microsoft's free Express Edition tools.

      If you want an active variant of Dev-C++, consider wxDevCpp. Because it integrates wxWidgets and GUI design tools, it at least fills a native GUI gap that VC++ Express leaves open in favour of Windows Forms and the .NET framework. Unlike Dev-C++, wxDevCpp can use both Microsoft and GNU tools as its back end.

      Personally speaking, the one must have feature in an IDE is a good debugger. It is hard to say that anything based on GDB is 'good' but Dev-C++'s GDB integration is truly abysmal, exposing only a fraction of GDB's functionality, and buggy as well. Given that Dev-C++ is widely used by students and beginners it is a shame that the debugger is so bad. Using a debugger should be the second thing you learn after "hello, world".

      VC++ 2008 Express can do all that Dev-C++ does, plus GUI development with Windows Forms and .NET (which while needing C++/CLI extensions is nonetheless very well designed). But more importantly, it has a working debugger that is second-to-none. It may fairly be accused of being bloated, but really; disk space is cheaper than toilet paper. It may take considerably longer to start up, but how much time is that really in a programming session? You will save all that and more, just by being able to debug effectively.

      Clifford

       

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