Sharing Project configuration files for an application with Qt IDE using Cmake and sharing via Git?

Question

Imagine that you are starting to work in a project with a group of people. You want to share your code and the full configuration files of CMake, Qt IDE configuration. So you if you want to test or develop, you just need to clone te repo, make and run.

This is a big project, so it has many modules and import some libraries.

Is there a way to share project configuration files in which the user does not need to do any adicional configuration in the Qt IDE such as using space or tabs in the editor, directories to do the build, qt kits used, etc?

The principal concern is to not repeat any configuration, and be easy to share and contribute for new people in the project.

Answer 1

Unfortunately I don't think there is an "easy" way to achieve this. Even if you can export IDE settings to a config file that others can import, what if different people want to use different key bindings? If you choose tabs, what if some contributors like tabs to be four spaces and others like two? How about color schemes? What if they don't even want to use the same IDE, or none at all? That's not your responsibility to enforce.

You would be better off just maintaining good documentation. A thorough readme file, that is checked into your repository, should specify coding standards and how/where to obtain and install dependencies. You can make some of the dependencies easier to maintain by using Git submodules (if you're using Git), but it's ultimately up to your contributors.

Make sure the project's maintainers are available for questions if there are issues getting the build environment set up, and to act as gatekeepers to make sure patches meet the team's standards.

Shift your focus to maintaining the incoming code, not how its produced.

(One last note: a set of BKM files (best-known-method) could be handy to provide, which includes exported IDE config files and a script to set up dependencies, but the usage of these resources should be optional.)