KAppTemplateCli: Quick application templates for the command-line

While coding I often have the need to create small sample-apps for debugging some library-code I'm writing or for figuring out what library code others have written does. Usually creating such a sample application not only involve creating and compiling some main.cpp as in a KDE context you also need some KAboutData, KComponentData as well as some basic CMakeLists.txt to actually be able to compile it.

While I could of course just construct some directories containing templates and just copy them to wherever I need it, I've lately been enjoying the power of KAppTemplate. This nifty little application uses pre-defined templates for various kinds of projects like KDE4 Applications, Qt4 Applications, Plasmoids and even PyKDE or KDERuby apps and a graphical assistant to get you going.

Now, I like doing stuff on the command-line and don't use all of the features KAppTemplate gives me (eg. filling the author or version part of the assistant is not needed of this particular use-case). So I decided to rip the template handling part of KAppTemplate to create my own little KAppTemplateCli to fit my needs.

Basic usage

Listing available templates

lemma@quechua:/tmp/tests$ kapptemplatecli --list
C++/KDE                                                     
  kapp4                - KDE 4 GUI Application
  plasmoid             - Plasma Applet Template
  runner               - Plasma Runner Template
  kpartapp             - KDE 4 KPart Application
  akonadiresource      - Akonadi Resource Template
  akonadiserializer    - Akonadi Serializer Template

C++/No GUI (CMake)
  cmake_plaincpp       - Simple CMake-based C++ application

C++/Qt (cmake)
  cmake_qt4core        - Qt4 CMake Core application
  cmake_qt4gui         - Qt4 CMake Gui application
  cmake_qt4core_qtest  - Qt4 CMake QTest Core application

[... stripped ...]

Showing template information

lemma@quechua:/tmp/tests$ kapptemplatecli --info=kapp4
Category   : C++/KDE
Basename   : kapp4
Name       : KDE 4 GUI Application
Description: KDE4 simple template based on CMake, inherits from XMLGuiWindow and demonstrates how to use KConfig XT

Creating an application from a template

lemma@quechua:/tmp/tests$ kapptemplatecli --template=kapp4 MyTest
lemma@quechua:/tmp/tests$ ls mytest
CMakeLists.txt  doc  icons  README  src
lemma@quechua:/tmp/tests$ mkdir mytest/build && cd mytest/build && cmake .. && make
lemma@quechua:/tmp/tests/mytest/build$ src/mytest

Download location & notes

• You can get KAppTemplateCli from: http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/playground/devtools/kapptemplatecli
• You'll need kdesdk and/or kdevplatform installed to get some templates it can use.
• KAppTemplateCli is not mature. Use at your own risk!
• It's not meant to be the same as legacy KAppTemplate by Kurt Granroth (which is command-line but takes an assistant-like approach like KAppTemplate)
  

Enjoy.