Handy IDE

Almost every experienced c++ developer has his(her) coding habit, and a handy IDE for his(her) quick daily development

Some kinds of IDE are complex software , they integrate multiple coding languages and lots of tools, they are bulky and slow

When we developing Unreal Engine games in c/c++ , we only focus on c/c++ , we only want machine’s resources to service c/c++ develop, nothing else, for unreal engine itself consume huge of memory and cpu , gpu resources when it working on big uproject…

Here the IDE that I just mean write code for c/c++ , I don’t involve compiling and debugging c/++ code , for compiling , unreal editor has LiveCoding, for debugging , maybe we still need stick to Visual studio on Windows platform, and Xcode on MacOS platform …\

What IDE we want for UE c++ should meet the following conditions :

• Free
• Lightweight
• Quick launch
• c/c++ specialist
• Quick code Auto complete
• Custom code block/snipt
• Auto generate override functions
• Peaceful cpu fan when coding
• Keep hard disk clean(without generating lots of intermittent/caching/hidden files)

Why QtCreator

For c/c++ specialist IDE , there are several choices , including QtCreator, CodeBlock , Vs Code…

lots people like VS Code, but I don’t, I wanna introduce QtCreator, for Unreal Engine c/c++ developing, it’s enough , I think…

Setup .pro file for uproject

We gonna use legacy mode (qmake) to manage c/c++ project in qt-creator, rather than the newer cmake mode

1, create a empty text file with .pro file extension

All c/c++ code files will organise by .pro file, we drag and drop this file into qt-createor, it then setup a empty c/c++ project

Insert this template lines to .pro file:

.pro

#TEMPLATE = app
CONFIG += console
CONFIG -= app_bundle
CONFIG -= qt

#
#
PRJNAMETOOT = YOURPROJECTNAME   # uppercased your project name
DEFINES += "YOURPROJECTNAME_API="
DEFINES += "YOURPROJECTNAME_API(...)="
#
DEFINES += "UCLASS()=YOURPROJECTNAME_API"
DEFINES += "UCLASS(...)=YOURPROJECTNAME_API"
#
# this is true during development with unreal-editor...

DEFINES += "WITH_EDITORONLY_DATA=1"

## this project only
 
INCLUDEPATH += ../Intermediate/Build/Win64/UnrealEditor/Inc/$$PRJNAMETOOT/UHT
INCLUDEPATH += $$PRJNAMETOOT/Public $$PRJNAMETOOT/Private
# we should follow UE project struct to include files, start from prj.Build.cs folder
#
#  The Thirdparty libs including paths
#
#
#
include(defs.pri)
include(inc.pri)
#
## this project only
# INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/Runtime/Renderer/Private

HEADERS += ....  # header files here

SOURCES +=   .... # cpp files here

Full content please reference Here

The defs.pri and inc.pri is qt-creator format including files, they just including lots of c/c++ header searching paths and defined some unreal engine specials macro defines , the purpose adding this defines is because qt-creator don’t know about unreal engine’s macors, we haven’t enabled unreal engine intelligence modular and IWYU this features consume lots of memory and when index auto-complete list, it’s very slow, and make the cpu fan frantic…

defs.pri

DEFINES += "UE_GAME=1"
DEFINES += "IS_PROGRAM=0"
....
....
DEFINES += "USERFEEDBACK_API="
DEFINES += "COLLECTIONMANAGER_API="
##
##
DEFINES += "LogTemp" "Warning"
DEFINES += "BlueprintType" "Blueprintable" "BlueprintPure" "BlueprintImplementableEvent"
DEFINES += "BlueprintAssignable" "BlueprintInternalUseOnly" "EditAnywhere" "EditDefaultsOnly"
DEFINES += "VisibleAnywhere" "BlueprintReadOnly"
##
##  Because this macro unfriend with QtCreater , so we redefined they to empty in this editor....
DEFINES += "checkf" "check" "checkAtCompileTime" "checkCode" "checkfSlow" "checkLockFreePointerList"
DEFINES += "checkName" "checkNoEntry" "checkNoRecursion" "checkNoReentry" "checkSlow" "checkStats"

Full content please reference here

inc.pri

#
# modify this two folder location to fit your environment
#
UESRCROOT = "C:/UnrealEngine/Engine/Source"
WINKITSROOT = "C:/Program Files (x86)/Windows Kits/10"
#
INCLUDEPATH += $$WINKITSROOT/include/10.0.22621.0/ucrt
INCLUDEPATH += $$WINKITSROOT/include/10.0.22621.0/shared
INCLUDEPATH += $$WINKITSROOT/include/10.0.22621.0/um
INCLUDEPATH += $$WINKITSROOT/include/10.0.22621.0/winrt
INCLUDEPATH += "C:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/2022/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.38.33130/INCLUDE"
#  #           "C:/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio/2022/Community/VC/Tools/MSVC/14.42.34433"
#
#
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/Runtime/AdpcmAudioDecoder/Module/Public
...
....
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/Runtime/XmlParser/Public
##
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/Runtime/Engine/Classes
##
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/../Plugins/Runtime/GameplayAbilities/Source/GameplayAbilities/Public
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/../Plugins/Runtime/ChunkDownloader/Source/Public
## online subsystem
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/../Plugins/Online/OnlineSubsystem/Source/Public
INCLUDEPATH += $$UESRCROOT/../Plugins/Online/OnlineServices/Source/OnlineServicesInterface/Public

##  Any other herder seraching paths append here
##
#

Full content please reference Here

Finalize

After correctly setting .pro file for qt-creator, we can now write c/c++ for unreal engine project.

• we need to manually include all relevance header files at the top of the cpp files (yes ,this step is annoying , but this is the key for save memory)
• in oder to let qt-crteaor’s auto-complete works correctly , we need to append all header files searching paths, instead of other IDE auto scan them for you(they found thousands of header files , parse them and put the result into memory, but we don’t want IDE do that )
• Qt-creator still can’t recognise some unreal engine specialist macro, such as UCLAA(…) , GENERATE_CLASS_BODY(), and so on…it’s sometimes annoying~
• When we need to compile the code just written , we just call unreal engine’s LiveCodeing by pressing ALT+CTRL+F11 , it’s a system shortcut, we can call it anywhere any time, then our code will be compile and read for debugging …

Happy coding

I just wrote something I knew about qt-creator for c/c++ coding, I hope I can manage more c/c++ technical and do good at Unreal Engine Game Development …

thanks for reading!