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Bug 331870

Summary:	Enhance the display of active build configuration in Project Explorer
Product:	[Tools] CDT	Reporter:	Alex Freidin <freidin.alex>
Component:	cdt-build-managed	Assignee:	Project Inbox <cdt-build-managed-inbox>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:	Jonah Graham <jonah>
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P3	CC:	cdtdoug, malaperle, yevshif, zulliger
Version:	8.0
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Whiteboard:

Description Alex Freidin

2010-12-05 10:55:18 EST

Build Identifier: M20100909-0800

Users migrating from IDEs like VS are used to build projects with a single click. The active build configuration is displayed in the toolbar and it is not necessary to explicitly check it, before pressing the build button. 
CDT doesn't display this info unless explicitly checked using one of the toolbar buttons (hammer or clock icons).
One suggestion to expose the active build configuration was by decorating the project name in https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=326305, but it was dropped. As was argued, project name is already decorated by version control decorators (e.g. CVS). Here, I'd like to discuss other alternatives to enhance the visibility of configuration name.
For example, selecting a project in Project Explorer will display at the status bar not only the project name, but also its active build configuration.


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Doug Schaefer

2010-12-05 18:48:20 EST

The CDT case is pretty complicated. Not all build systems used with CDT even have the concept of build configurations. Now that we have migrated support for them down to the platform that will get rectified over time. But for now, putting the "active configuration" in a common place will be problematic.

As I've mentioned previously, I'd like to add build configurations as an entry in the CProject hierarchy and made visible in Project Explorer. We could show active build configurations in bold, and even show the active one as a decorator on the "Build Configs" node.

Comment 2 Alex Freidin

2010-12-06 03:18:14 EST

Sounds good. The decorator on "Build Configs" node is important as it allows to keep this folder collapsed most of the time. It would be useful if config entry had a context menu with the common actions like: build, clean, set active.

Comment 3 Marc-André Laperle

2011-07-15 20:56:29 EDT

I like the combo box in VS. Would it possible to add a combo box to the tool bar? Or would it be too cluttered?