Developing with QtCreator

Developing with QtCreator#

QtCreator is the recommended IDE to build nymea projects. If you haven’t done so, make sure the build environment is set up properly by following the guide in Build environment.

The same shared workspace and environment that is described in Build nymea can also be used here. That makes it easier to run nymea from a build directory and keeps debugging settings in one place.

In Qt Creator, the shared environment can be added under the project settings in Project -> Build Environment. That allows multiple dependent projects to share the same headers, libraries and plugin paths while still being built, run and debugged independently.

When you use Qt Creator, open the projects from the shared workspace one after another and build them in dependency order. That ensures the later projects can resolve headers and libraries from the earlier builds.

General steps for all nymea projects#

  1. Open QtCreator and click on File -> Open file or project

  2. Navigate to the .pro file of the wanted project and open it.

  3. In the next step, choose the wanted build kit. Unless you have special requirements, the default Desktop kit will do.

Project specific options#

The following options differ between the various projects. If the project you are looking for is not in here, no special options are required. You should now be able to run the project using the build/play buttons.

Nymea#

Note

Note: It is advised to uninstall libnymea1 to run a self built nymea instance to avoid confusion when libraries are loaded.

To run nymea from Qt Creator, use the same run environment as the shell example in the build documentation. Open the project settings, then use Project -> Build Environment to add the workspace variables from the shared development workspace include. If you want to launch nymead from Qt Creator, also copy the runtime relevant variables into Project -> Run Environment.

At minimum, LD_LIBRARY_PATH must point at the build output for libnymea and libnymea-core. If you are running a larger workspace with custom plugins and libraries, also add the other variables from the shared development workspace include. This is what makes it practical to build, run and debug multiple dependent nymea projects from the same Qt Creator session.

Now you should be able to run nymead by pressing the Play button in Qt Creator or by pressing Ctrl + r. You can follow stdout in the Application Output section (Alt + 3).

If you want to run the application in the terminal, start nymead from the build tree after exporting the same environment variables.

In order to load custom plugins with this self-built nymea instance, also set NYMEA_PLUGINS_PATH pointing to the build directory of the plugin.

Nymea integration plugins#

When developing plugins, nymea needs to be installed on the system. A run configuration for the plugin can be created by entering the project configuration on the left hand side in Qt Creator, then selecting the “Run” configuration for your kit and creating a run configuration with a “Custom executable”. The executable should be nymead and the command line arguments should at least include -n. In the environment, export a variable named NYMEA_PLUGINS_PATH making it point to the build directory of the plugin.