Which IDE to use with SDCC?

From the [sdcc-users] mailing list:

If you are using Windows, and happen to have WinAVR http://winavr.sourceforge.net/ installed, then you already have an IDE that works with SDCC. In fact, I think installing is a good way to go, even if you don't plan to use the AVR aspects of it.

For those that don't know what it is, WinAVR is a suite of open-source tools for Atmel's AVR microcontrollers development under windows.

The editor, “Programmer's Notepad” (PN for short), is a generic IDE. It provides color syntax highlighting, and several other features useful for programming. As distributed with WinAVR, PN has pre-configured items in the “tools” menu to run a standard makefile (make all, make clean, and make program). PN displays the compiler messages, with any errors made into clickable links that will put the editor on the line causing that error.

WinAVR also comes with a subset of CygWin, in particular it has gnu make. There are also several utils usually found in Linux, such as the bash shell, diff, and even md5sum. If you have WinAVR installed, then you have md5sum, it even works from a dos window! And the gnu make that installs with WinAVR is not tied to WinAVR, you can use it from other IDE's, such as notepad++.

There is a util in WinAVR suite (mfile) that can generate a makefile, but unfortunately the options are hardcoded in the program. I just created my makefile by hand.

Note that there is no conflict between AVR projects, and SDCC projects. PN just runs the makefile it finds in the current directory.

I have a directory “G:\projects\” with several subdirectories. Some are AVR projects, and those subdirs have the WinAVR makefile. Others are SDCC projects, and have a SDCC makefile. I even have a couple of others that have makefiles that run an 1802 assembler.

Programmer's Notepad is an independent project that is bundled with WinAVR. You can download it by itself from it's own website, but it will need a bit of configuring, and it won't come with gnu make. I recommend just installing WinAVR, unless you would find it fun to do it all yourself.

I am running it under win98, and there are a couple of quirks, and I don't know if I am the only one experiencing them. Sometimes the output window will disappear (to under the editor window) when I try to click in the output window. I have to drag the output window a couple of pixels by it's titlebar, and then it won't disappear. Also, the open dialog is sometimes invisible until I click the mouse. I suspect that it may be due to me being one of the last people on Earth still running win98.

I suppose these would be show-stoppers for some people, but I find the utility to be worth the minor annoyance. Notepad++ is a very similar tool to programmer's notepad, and it does not have this bug. I use both, and they both have their strengths and weaknesses. (notepad++ has a hex editor plug-in, and PN does not).

For what it's worth, I used Wordpad and .bat files with SDCC for a couple of weeks, till the light bulb went on in my head that I could use WinAVR's PN and make, if I just made a new makefile.

Randy