Introducing Motor: a Programming IDE for Linux

What is Motor

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.

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.

Getting and Installing Motor

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 http://konst.org.ua/motor/

Let's assume the version number is 1.14.19

To install from the tarball do the following:

tar zxvf motor-1.14.19.tar.gz
cd motor-1.14.19
./configure
make
make install

And if you've got the rpm:

rpm -ihv motor-1.14.19-1.Linux-i386.rpm

"Hello, world!": a Simple Project Using Motor

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ...

printf("Hello, world!\n");

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.

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.

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".

Generating tar.gz and a configure script

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.

Generating .rpm

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".

Contributing to Motor Development

As it usually happens with my programs -- any comments, ideas, bug-reports and patches you make while using Motor, are welcome. Mail them to me directly. 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.

About the author

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 "NIX Solutions" 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 konst@konst.org.ua. Konst's personal site URL is http://konst.org.ua/.