First, make sure you have a working toolchain and can build and run SerenityOS. Go here for instructions for setting that up.
-
Install Qt Creator. You don't need the entire Qt setup, just click 'Qt Creator' on the left side, and install that.
-
Open Qt Creator, select
File -> New File or Project...
-
Select
Import Existing Project
-
Give it a name (some tools assume lower-case
serenity
), and navigate to the root of your SerenityOS project checkout. Click Next. -
Wait for the file list to generate. This can take a minute or two!
-
Ignore the file list, we will overwrite it later. Click Next.
-
Set
Add to version control
to<None>
. Click Finish. -
In your shell, go to your SerenityOS project directory, and invoke the
Meta/refresh-serenity-qtcreator.sh
script to regenerate theserenity.files
file. You will also have to do this every time you delete or add a new file to the project. -
Edit the
serenity.config
file (In Qt Creator, hit ^K or CMD+K on a Mac to open the search dialog, type the name of the file and hit return to open it) -
Add the following
#define
s to the file://#define KERNEL #define ENABLE_UNICODE_DATA 1 //#define ENABLE_COMPILETIME_FORMAT_CHECK #define __serenity__ #define SANITIZE_PTRS 1 #define __SSE__
If you're working on the Kernel, just uncomment
#define KERNEL
. -
Edit the
serenity.cxxflags
file to say-std=c++23 -fsigned-char -fconcepts -fno-exceptions -fno-semantic-interposition -fPIC
-
Edit the
serenity.includes
file to list the following lines:./ Userland/ Userland/Libraries/ Userland/Libraries/LibC/ Userland/Libraries/LibSystem/ Userland/Services/ Toolchain/Local/x86_64/x86_64-pc-serenity/include/c++/13.1.0 Build/x86_64/ Build/x86_64/Userland/ Build/x86_64/Userland/Libraries/ Build/x86_64/Userland/Services/ AK/
Finally, search in the options for "BOM" (Text Editor > Behavior > File Encodings > UTF-8 BOM), and switch to "Always delete".
Qt Creator should be set up correctly now, go ahead and explore the project and try making changes. Have fun! :^)
You can use clang-format
to help you with the style guide. Before you proceed, check that you're actually using clang-format version 18, as some OSes will ship older clang-format versions by default.
- In QtCreator, go to "Help > About Plugins…"
- Find the
Beautifier (experimental)
row (for example, by typingbeau
into the search) - Put a checkmark into the box
- Restart QtCreator if it asks you
- In QtCreator, go to "Tools > Options…"
- Type "beau" in the search box, go to "Beautifier > Clang Format"
- Select the "customized" style, click "edit"
- Paste the entire content of the file
.clang-format
into the "value" box, and click "OK" - In the "Beautifier > General" tab, check "Enable auto format on file save"
- Select the tool "ClangFormat" if not already selected, and click "OK"
Note that not the entire project is clang-format-clean (yet), so sometimes you will see large diffs. Use your own judgement whether you want to include such changes. Generally speaking, if it's a few lines then it's a good idea; if it's the entire file then maybe there's a better way to do it, like doing a separate commit, or just ignoring the clang-format changes.
You may want to read up what git add -p
does (or git checkout -p
, to undo).
QtCreator tends to interpret IPC definitions as C++ headers, and then tries to format them. This is not useful. One way to avoid that is telling QtCreator that IPC definitions are not C++ headers.
- In QtCreator, go to "Tools > Options…"
- Type "beau" in the search box, go to "Environment > MIME Types"
- In the little search box, type "plain", and select "text/plain"
- In the "details" section, you should now see the list of Patterns, something like
*.txt;*.asc;*,v
. Extend it in the following way:*.txt;*.asc;*,v;*.ipc;*.gml
- Click "OK" to close the dialog.
- Maybe you need to close and open again the IPC files. You can check what QtCreator is doing by right-clicking the filename in the editor tab, and clicking "Properties...". In the third line, you should see
MIME type: text/plain
.
You may have noticed how Andreas just types lic
and the license appears.
In order to so, create a new file anywhere, for example license-template.creator
, with the standard license:
/*
* Copyright (c) 2023, the SerenityOS developers.
*
* SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-2-Clause
*/
In QtCreator, select the menu "Tools", item "Options", section "C++", tab
"File Naming" (don't ask me why it's here). At the bottom there should be the
option "License template:". Click "Browse…", select your file (i.e.,
license-template.creator
). Click "OK", and you're done! :)
You can slightly improve how well Qt interprets the code by adding and setting up an appropriate "compiler kit".
For that you will need to reference the compilers at Toolchain/Local/x86_64/bin/x86_64-pc-serenity-gcc
and Toolchain/Local/x86_64/bin/x86_64-pc-serenity-g++
.