Is there any coherent documentation for KDevelop4 for someone new to this Linux arena?

Was not able to find any Books for the KDE Development Environment (just for QT4) from the sources I've looked at so far (ie. Amazon). There is some online documentation, but man, not something to learn from...I really can't do much with the online doc I've come across so far. I'm not a dummy...I just need specifics to get started and to understand the workings and interfaces of the various libraries, and how to use the KDevelop application.

My interest is in building a GUI app. If someone can point me in the right direction for some documentation in this regard, it woulkd be most appreciated.

Right now my best option is to go with QT4 since there are books available on how to develop code with it. But I would prefer to use KDevelop.

Thanks.

You seem to be a bit confused about what is what. So let me clear up some words:

Qt4 is version 4 of Qt, which is a set of libraries which can be used to develop cross-platform GUI or other applications. It contains things like classes for creating windows, buttons, dialogs etc, but also high-level interfaces to networking, filesystem, and various other things. For documentation about Qt4, see qt-project.org.

KDE, talking about the development platform, is a set of libraries which is built on top of Qt4 and adds additional functionality. So, if you're using the KDE libraries to develop something, you'll be using Qt4 plus some of KDE's additions. For documentation about KDE, see api.kde.org.

KDevelop is an integrated development environment (IDE) which can be used to write any sort of code, but is especially optimized for writing KDE/Qt apps with the tools which are commonly used to develop such applications (CMake, git, ...). So, KDevelop is just a tool and not a development platform, and you're in no sense choosing between using Qt4 or KDevelop -- they just do completely different things. You can use KDevelop to develop a Qt4 application. For documentation about KDevelop, see http://userbase.kde.org/KDevelop4/Manual.

I hope this helps you to ask more specific questions, if you still have some.

Greetings,
Sven

Sven,

I'm not confused, more like frustrated. All that you have referenced I've look at in depth already. Any documentation for the KDevelop development environment I've been able to look at so far does not help me to determine if it is practical for me to use KDevelop/KDevPlatform for the project I have in mind. Right now I'm not confident I can use this development environment since there just isn't any suitable documentation that I can use to apply it. It seems that if you don't know QT or aren't "in the know", then you are prone to this kind of frustration. So I'm going with QT Creator with QT4 since there is plenty of suitable documentation for that.

...Robert.

I'm sorry, but your first post contained sentences like

Right now my best option is to go with QT4 since there are books available on how to develop code with it. But I would prefer to use KDevelop.

which just makes zero sense, since using Qt4 and using KDevelop is totally unrelated: you can use just Qt4, or just KDevelop, or both. If you just swapped the words (maybe you meant QtCreator instead of Qt4?) and I misunderstood you, I'm sorry, but that wasn't visible from your post.

For documentation about KDevelop, see my last post, it points to our user manual. Did you follow that link? What are you missing there? Do you have any concrete questions? Then you can just ask them here.

Greetings,
Sven

Sven,

Part of the reason I was looking at the documentation for KDevelop was to try to get to the documentation about the KDevPlatform library(s) sinced I wanted to know what was in there, not just about how to use KDevelop. My understanding from the docs I was able to read was that KDevPlatform was an extension of QT, so my thinking was that it was "better" or "more". So, what was this "better" or "more"? Naturally I would want the "best", right? Since that information was elusive for me I decided to just go with what QT/QTCreator (the QT stuff) has to offer. There is lots of good/clear information that tells me what QT is and how to use QTCreator, and I'm confident I can use it.

As for the point you were trying to make: I probably should have said "KDevPlatform" (the library) instead of "KDevelop" (the tool). If I have to be so precise and careful about what words I use here, it might be a tough go for me here. But I did properly convey what I was looking for. And the docs for KDevelop/KDevPlatform does need some work, from my point-of-view.

...Robert.

Hi Robert,

rdp wrote:Part of the reason I was looking at the documentation for KDevelop was to try to get to the documentation about the KDevPlatform library(s) sinced I wanted to know what was in there, not just about how to use KDevelop.

That was in no way obvious from your post, I'm sorry. Also, be aware that kdevplatform and kdelibs are two different things; kdevplatform is a library for writing IDEs (currently only used by KDevelop -- so you can consider it part of KDevelop if you want), while kdelibs is basic libraries for writing KDE applications, and used by hundreds of projects.

My understanding from the docs I was able to read was that KDevPlatform was an extension of QT, so my thinking was that it was "better" or "more".

kdevplatform is a library based on Qt and kdelibs, for writing development environments.

So, what was this "better" or "more"? Naturally I would want the "best", right?

Those words are highly subjective and ultimately you'll have to decide what tool works best for you. I could of course tell you that kdevelop is better than qtcreator, but there's no point in that.

Since that information was elusive for me I decided to just go with what QT/QTCreator (the QT stuff) has to offer. There is lots of good/clear information that tells me what QT is and how to use QTCreator, and I'm confident I can use it.

Fair enough.

If I have to be so precise and careful about what words I use here, it might be a tough go for me here.

Well, if we're communicating and we're describing different things with the same word, it's not going to work. Since you mixed up some words in your posts (and you still do), I thought it would be helpful to give a list of what the words mean. I didn't blame you for mixing the words up, after all it is a lot of words, I just wanted to explain.

But I did properly convey what I was looking for. And the docs for KDevelop/KDevPlatform does need some work, from my point-of-view.

Not in a way I understood it. You're still writing you're interested in technical documentation for KDevPlatform, while I'm 99% sure that's in fact not what you're looking for, except if you're interested in writing an IDE. Your original question was about KDevelop documentation, and I still didn't understand your problem with the manual I pointed you too. Maybe you're looking for the kdelibs documentation -- but I pointed you to that, too.

So, I'm still confused what you originally were looking for (are you looking for a development environment, or a development library?) and what you're looking for now, but if you've found it, it's probably fine.

Cheers,
Sven

I was looking for both, but not any more.