# Anjuta FAQ

Frequently asked questions with Anjuta IDE

Naba
Kumar
Andy
Piper
Biswapesh
Chattopadhyayr
Johannes
Schmid
2001
Andy Piper
2002
Biswapesh Chatopadhyay
2006
Johannes Schmid

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Anjuta FAQ 2.1.0
2007

Johannes Schmidjhs@gnome.org

Anjuta Team

This is a list of the most frequently asked questions for the Anjuta C/C++ IDE. If you have got a question which is not listed, feel free to contact the Anjuta developers via the mailing lists

## General Information

What does the name Anjuta stand for? It does not look like one of those recursive names

Anjuta is the name of Naba Kumar's (founder) girlfriend &mdash; this software is dedicated to her.

Is here/will there ever be Anjuta for Windows ?

There is no native port for Windows and it most likely won't ever be. Anjuta uses GNOME platform, so it requires GNOME itself to be ported natively to Windows first. However, there is cywin port of Anjuta (and GNOME) which you can try out on Windows. It's going to be slow to run, but it works: http://cygwinports.dotsrc.org/

## Building Anjuta

Where can I find the latest source for Anjuta?

Anjuta can be found in GNOME Subversion repository. You can find out more about how to obtain the SVN sources at the GNOME site, or at the project home page.

There is no configure script in SVN version !

You'll have to generate the configure script using the autogen.sh script that is included with the source. Note that you will need compatible versions of automake, autoconf, libtool and other tools necessary. The script will tell you what things you need.

How can I switch between the two editors with Anjuta >= 2.0.2?

Anjuta will prompt you to select one of them when it first (as of the runtime) requires an editor. If you check mark the 'Remember this selection' in the selection dialog, Anjuta will remember your selection and never prompt again in subsequent runs. You can 'forget' this selection from Settings->Plugins->Preferred plugins dialog.

When I build the Anjuta source, I get compiler errors for some missing packages or .pc files.

Obviously you need to install those missing packages along with there corresponding development packages. Check out your distribution to find them. For example, on debian based systems, the packages are usually named *-dev and on RedHat based systems, they are *-devel. Make sure you install the packages as requested by the configure script.

When I try to build Anjuta from source, make fails in the `intl` directory.

Look at the output from configure. There may be errors like:

          checking for xgettext... (cached) /usr/bin/xgettext
          checking for catalogs to be installed...  es fr it ja pl ru sv tr uk
          sed: can't read ./intl/po2tbl.sed.in: No such file or directory
          creating ./config.status
          creating Makefile
          creating intl/Makefile
          sed: can't read ./intl/Makefile.in: No such file or directory
          creating po/Makefile.in

This means that the build failure is probably due to the infamous gettext bug. This sometimes causes the files required to build message translations to be destroyed (note: this is not an Anjuta issue!). You should reinstall gettext or use a working version. version 0.10.x if known to work well.

## Installing Anjuta

Can I install Anjuta locally, in my home directory?

Anjuta mostly works fine from a local installation and Anjuta hackers do it all the time. You might experience some problems with the Help entries, but that's about it. If you encounter such a problem (missing Help entries), install the stable version in the GNOME install prefix and then install the latest version in a local directory.

I get lots of jade errors while building documentation.

You probably do not have updated Docbook stylesheets and/or OpenJade. You can ignore the errors since Anjuta will install fine even if the documentation could not be built.

## Getting Involved with Anjuta development

Why doesn't Anjuta have my favourite XYZ feature?

Because you haven't added them ? This is free software. You are free to, even encouraged to take the source code and add the features you need. If you don't think yourself to be capable of doing that, file a request for enhancement or send a mail to the devel list.

Why doesn't Anjuta compile/work on my favourite platform?

Because you haven't sent us patches/bug reports. Please send log messages and, if possible, patches to anjuta-devel mailing list. You can also file it as a bug or feature request. Anjuta developers are poor guys that do not have the luxary to own all sorts of hardware/OS, so if you want it fixed for those platforms, the best thing to do is to try fixing it yourself and give us the patches or file a bug report in bugzilla so that someone else with the platform can fix it.

Anjuta crashes/does strange things when I do this.

File a bug report.

I want to help to develop Anjuta &mdash; where can I find out what tasks need to be done?

Check the Product summary at Bugzilla and Pending Tasks at Anjuta website. Some tasks even have bounties on them. There are always plenty of bugs and feature requests to pick up. It is a good idea to join the anjuta-devel mailing list (anjuta-devel@list.sf.net) first, though. Start small and then gradually tackle bigger and bigger thngs.

I want to add XYZ feature/new language to the editor.

If you want to improve Anjuta's editor, it is better to hack on Scintilla or GtkSourceView instead. Anjuta simply uses the editors widget directly.

I have added this cool feature to my copy of Anjuta - where do I send a patch ?

Create a bugzilla entry and attach your patch there. We will look at it in due time. It is a good idea to subscribe to the develeper's mailing list if you plan to do some hacking. You can find links here.

## Using Anjuta

What is the correct way of using an external library such as GTK+ in my applications? Or what flag do I specify if I want to link my project to libxxx.a or libxxx.so ?

Use project and target properties to add them to your project. Please refer to Anjuta Users Manual for detailed instruction on this.

I want to organize my code into multiple directories.

Use 'groups' in Anjuta project. They are the sub-directories in your project. They can be easily added and removed. Please refer to Anjuta Users Manual for detailed instruction on this.

How do I copy/print messages that appear during build ?

Right-click in the message pane ->Save messages!

What does this error message COLLECT 2: LD RETURN / EXIT STATES mean?

This means that the linker failed. This usualay happens when you do not link your application with the necessary libaries or object files.

I cannot use names like 'my-project' for project names.

You can only use alphabets, numbers and the underscore character in project names. (can anyone confirm this if this is still the case in newer versions?)

How do I add multiple files at once to my project or open multiple files at once? Adding/opening single file repeatedly is very tedious.

Press CTRL in the fileselector and it will enter multiple select mode. You can then select all the files to add and press OK. Ditto for opening files.

How do I define another projects directory other than the default "~/Projects"?

In Settings Preferences General, you should be able to change the default projects directory.

How do I change shortcuts for common commands ?

Use Settings->Customize shortcuts.

I cannot use a standard shortcut with Anjuta. All shortcuts seem to be messed up!

Exit from Anjuta, delete $HOME/.gnome2/accels/anjuta and restart. This will restore the shortcut to the (sane) default values.

Why don't you add file manipulation commands on the file pane like 'Rename', 'Delete', etc. ?

Because we feel that these commands are better off being in your file manager and not in the IDE. However, you can always try and convince us otherwise ;-)

Context help does not work/is disabled.

You probably do not have Devhelp installed. please install DevHelp. Check also that you have devhelp plugin enabled in Settings->Plugins.

I already have a project tree. How do I use Anjuta ?

If your project is autoconf/automake based, simply run File->New->Project from existing sources to import your project.

I hate the editor fonts/colors/XYZ feature. How do I have better control of editor preferences ?

Go to Settings->Preferences. You can find most of the editor preferences unset the 'Styles' and 'Editor' tabs. However, not all preferences are available through the GUI. If you want more control over the editor, open $HOME/.anjuta/session.properties, $HOME/.anjuta/user.properties and $prefix/share/anjuta/properties/anjuta.properties and edit them by hand. Make sure that Anjuta if not running when you do this, however !

This FAQ was compiled by Andy Piper(andy.piper@freeuk.com) ,Biswapesh Chatopadhyay (biswapesh_chatterjee@tcscal.co.in) and Johannes Schmid (johannes.schmid@gmx.de) Please send all comments and suggestions regarding the FAQ to the authors. For more information on Anjuta or the Anjuta mailing lists, please visit the Anjuta Home Page.