Re: [Builder] Extending gnome builder with autovala

[Christian Hergert <christian hergert me>]

(Forgot to Reply-All, oops! Useful knowledge for others too).

Hi,

Sorry for the slow reply, GUADEC is getting started and everyone is
traveling.

On 08/08/2016 04:41 AM, Sergio Costas wrote:
> I'm a happy user of Gnome-Builder, but since I use mainly Vala, I
> prefer to use Autovala instead the default autotools backend. I want
> to integrate Autovala in Gnome-Builder, but I can't find how to do
> it properly.

Build system abstractions are implemented using IdeBuildSystem and
associated objects (including IdeBuilder and IdeBuildResult).

It might be useful to start with a CMake backend and then extend that to
support Autovala.

> Currently I just want to embed the basic autovala widgets (like
> already did in gedit and scratch), and, in a future, integrate it 
> better.

Builder is an IDE, where as Gedit and others are more of a "plain old
editor" without IDE abstractions. That means that we keep track of
things like build systems, version control systems, diagnostics,
semantic highlighting, etc as part of a whole, rather than just
individual plugins.

Simply dropping in a widget is not going to provide great integration,
so you'll probably need to bridge the systems that autovala supports
with the IDE abstractions that Builder is built upon.

If you want to add a side-panel to the editor, try adding an
IdeWorkbenchAddin and in the load() vfunc, add the panel to the editor
perspective.

The project-tree or symbol-browser workbench addins might be useful as
examples.

> Unfortunately I'm unable to find the way. I tried adding a
> new perspective, but the autovala widget was not visible while you
> are editing the code (you have to change the perspective).

Correct, Perspectives are similar to a workspace in a window manager.
Think of it as a completely new area for a given topic. Editing,
debugging, profiling, ui designer, etc.

> I checked the EditorView, but also seems not right. What I need is to replace
> (or just put everything in a Gtk.Notebook widget to allow to switch
> between) the "Project" column in the source view with the autovala
> widgets.

EditorView plugins are created for every view of a document. So that is
more useful for things that need to react to document changes in the view.

Is it possible? How can I do that?

See plugins/symbol-tree/symbol-tree.c in symbol_tree_load(). You'll
probably want the left edge instead of right though.

Cheers,

-- Christian