18.7. KDevelop 2.0—A Preview

Coming near to the end of this chapter, you will certainly think about what is in store for developers with the upcoming KDE 2.0 version of KDevelop. As I said earlier, it is currently not the best option to make use of it for production; it is under constant development and it will bear some major changes and improvements that will make programming even easier (see Figure 18.12).

Most changes will take place in the areas of the user interface. The current development version already contains an MDI structure that allows you to open several source-code windows at the same time, whereas the 1.x series of KDevelop is single-window based. This improves switching between source files, and you will be able to see more of your code at one time. Furthermore, you'll have the Documentation-Browser at your side while you're editing, so you don't have to switch any more between the editor and the documentation windows. The MDI interface we're using also allows you to switch the child windows into top-level mode and back, which will be of good use for all programmers who have more than one monitor. Now you can spread out your coding windows all over the place.

Further, the Tree View and the Output View can be "docked" and "undocked" into the main window of KDevelop. You can also separate each tabulator of these views into single windows. With KDevelop 2.0, usability will reach a next level for programmers—so stay tuned.

Other features that will arise are a new Dialog Editor, an exchangeable editor interface to let you choose your favorite coding editor, better project management, and improved classparsing. We'll also try to support more programming languages in the future, but this is currently still a topic under discussion. Everyone's invited to participate on the project, so there is an open door for those that want to have new features. Feel free to implement them and help us to create an even more competitive and developer-friendly development environment.