What is motor?

Motor is an IDE for Linux that works in the console and provides the developer with a useful mcedit-like editor, front-ends to the compiler, linker, debugger (gdb), concurrent version system (cvs), ctags, rpm, automake/autoconf 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 easily added.

New features

Autoconf/automake support

As autoconf/automake is a de-facto standard for Linux packages, we've been planning to implement support for it in motor for a long time. And now it's finally done. Most of files needed by automake are generated and updated by a script that resides inside.

Makefile.func (see below)

Using automake gives a developer a bunch of benefits such as automatic dependency tracking, ready-to-use standard Makefile targets such as `dist' to generate a tar.gz distribution package, `all' to build the binaries, `clean' and `distclean' to clear generated stuff, etc. So it must have been supported by motor long ago.

To use automake/autoconf with a project you write with motor, you are simply to set "makefile mode" to "automake" value on project creation. If you decided to migrate an existing one to automake, the option is accessible in the "project settings" dialog. Sometimes, it so happens that your Makefile.am's are accidentally removed or broken. In such cases motor has a facility to regenerate it. This can be achieved with selecting the "Project->Regen.build stuff" menu item. You might also need to make some alterations in your Makefile.am's or configure.in. All the files can be found in the "Build stuff" folder of the "Project files" dialog.

Gettext support

Another interesting feature motor 2.15.7 and later versions have is the gettext support. GNU gettext is a localization library designed especially to make Linux programs as well as other GNU software, speak various languages. Any language can be supported just with putting a single file to the special directory.

How it works with motor

Please note that it requires you to be quite familiar with `gettext'. You can turn `on' or `off' the feature with the "Use GNU gettext for internationalization" item either in the "Create a new project" window or, in the "Project settings" dialog.