Visual C/C++ for free!

[Rookie One]

Well, kind of. It's no warez, though!

   

   I've been looking around for a nice C/C++ IDE (integrated development environment) to replace Visual C/C++, as I wanted to stop using any m$ dev tools at all (I was still using the Visual Studio editor because it has nice colouring and code completion) and resort to free software.

   

   Firstly, I tried Code::Blocks. Very easy to use, project importing from Visual Studio and stuff, nice syntax highlighting. But the code completion is crap! It doesn't distinguish between the . and -> operators and can't handle struct/class arrays.

   

   Then I tried http://www.parinyasoft.com/">MinGW Developer Studio and instantly I knew this is it. The interface is almost identical to Visual Studio, but improved:

   http://www.parinyasoft.com/mds_win_snapshot6.html">http://www.parinyasoft.com/images/mds/windows/tn_snapshot6.png" alt="" />

   One thing that it lacks is the class view, but it's not a big deal (I didn't use it anyway). And it has this very nice VC-style code completion, which is even improved by suggesting function names as well as struct/class fields. And it's cross-platform - it can run under Linux and Mac as well!

   

   Check out the full feature list http://www.parinyasoft.com/mingwstudio.html">here, download http://www.parinyasoft.com/download.html">here (use the Full Setup package, unless you have MinGW installed). Converting a project from Visual Studio isn't hard, and you maintain "backwards compatibility" (against MSVC), as code that compiles under MinGW is guaranteed to compile in MSVC, too (the GNU compilers are pedantic compared to MSVC when it comes to code standards compliance).

   

   There is also another one, called http://visual-mingw.sourceforge.net/">Visual MinGW, which also aims for MSVC similarity. Great stuff, check it out!

[Elgan {sfx}]

hey, looks good. i use VC++ 6 :D, nothing special about the ide, it's just the code is .net free and works. Compile is good.

   

   

   this is a compiler too? ill take a look, looks nice. depends on what it compiles without messing around for ages tho,.

[*Herr_Kruger]

Hmm i should take a look when i have some more or free time at all.