aIDE

A JetBrains IntelliJ-inspired application platform for C++/Qt desktop applications.

aIDE eliminates the boilerplate of building a Qt desktop application — giving you a pre-wired action registry, settings dialog, configurable keybindings, and structured logging out of the box, so you can focus on your application's unique functionality.

Think of it as the IntelliJ Platform, but for C++20 and Qt.

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Table of Contents

• Features
• Roadmap
• Requirements
• Integration
• Usage
• Building from Source
• License
• Contributing
• Contributors

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Features

• Action Registry — register QActions under a HierarchicalId (e.g. "Main Menu"/"File"/"New") and look them up or bind them to menus anywhere in your application
• Settings Dialog — a tree-structured settings UI; add your own pages with a single SettingsPageRegistry::addPage() call
• Configurable Keybindings — per-action key sequences stored in QSettings, editable through the built-in keybinding settings page
• Structured Logging — spdlog-based logging behind a LoggerInterface, so your components stay decoupled from the logging backend
• Translation Support — TranslatorInterface integrates Qt's QTranslator with an easy hook for loading additional translation files
• Qt6 — built and shipped against Qt 6.5+
• C++20 — modern, interface-driven design with no exceptions in public API

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Roadmap

The following features are planned for future releases:

• Notification system
• Background task management
• Version control integration
• Appearance settings (fonts, themes, color schemes)
• Additional settings infrastructure

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Requirements

Dependency	Minimum version
CMake	3.25
C++ compiler	C++20 (GCC 10+, Clang 12+, MSVC 2019 16.11+)
Qt	Qt 6.5+
Conan	2.x (recommended for dependency management)

Platforms: Linux, macOS, Windows.

aIDE's own dependencies (fmt, spdlog, Catch2) are managed automatically via Conan 2 using the bundled conan_provider.cmake.

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Integration

The recommended way to consume aIDE is via CMake's FetchContent.

Step 1 — Set up Conan (recommended)

aIDE requires fmt and spdlog. The easiest way to provide them is to use the same conan_provider.cmake hook that aIDE uses internally:

# In your top-level CMakeLists.txt, before project()
set(CMAKE_PROJECT_TOP_LEVEL_INCLUDES
    "${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR}/cmake/conan_provider.cmake"
)

Copy conan_provider.cmake into your project's cmake/ directory, then create a conanfile.txt that includes at minimum:

[requires]
fmt/12.1.0
spdlog/1.17.0

[generators]
CMakeDeps

Alternatively, provide fmt and spdlog through any other CMake-compatible package manager.

Step 2 — Fetch and link aIDE

include(FetchContent)

FetchContent_Declare(
    aide
    GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/mrpilot2/aide.git
    GIT_TAG        v0.3.0
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(aide)

target_link_libraries(my_app PRIVATE Aide::AideApplication)

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Usage

A minimal aIDE application:

#include <aide/application.hpp>
#include <aide/settings/settingspageregistry.hpp>
#include <aide/menucontainerinterface.hpp>
#include <aide/aideconstants.hpp>

#include <QLabel>

int main(int argc, char* argv[])
{
    // Must be set before constructing Application
    aide::Application::setOrganizationName("MyCompany");
    aide::Application::setApplicationName("MyApp");
    aide::Application::setApplicationDisplayName("My Application");

    const aide::Application app(argc, argv);

    // Access the main window provided by aIDE
    auto mainWindow = app.mainWindow();
    mainWindow->setCentralWidget(new QLabel("Hello from aIDE!"));

    // Register a custom settings page
    aide::core::SettingsPageRegistry::addPage(
        std::make_unique<MySettingsPage>(
            aide::HierarchicalId("My App")("Preferences"),
            aide::AideSettingsProvider::unversionableSettings()));

    // Extend an existing menu
    auto actionRegistry = app.actionRegistry();
    auto fileMenu = actionRegistry->getMenuContainer(
        aide::HierarchicalId("Main Menu")("File"));

    if (fileMenu.has_value()) {
        auto* action = new QAction(QObject::tr("New Project..."));
        fileMenu.value()->menu()->addAction(action);
        actionRegistry->registerAction(
            std::shared_ptr<QAction>(action),
            aide::HierarchicalId("Main Menu")("File")("New Project"));
    }

    return aide::Application::exec();
}

A fully working example is available in the demo/ directory.

Key concepts

Concept	Description
aide::Application	Derives from QApplication; owns the main window, logger, settings, and action registry
aide::HierarchicalId	Dot-separated ID used to address actions and settings (e.g. "Main Menu"/"File"/"New")
aide::core::SettingsPageRegistry	Static registry; call addPage() to add your own pages to the settings dialog
ActionRegistryInterface	Look up menus and actions by HierarchicalId; register new actions for keybinding support
LoggerInterface	Inject into your components for structured, spdlog-backed logging

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Building from Source

aIDE uses CMake presets for all build configurations.

Prerequisites

• CMake 3.25+
• Conan 2.x (pip install conan)
• Clang or GCC (recommended for the dev preset)
• Qt 6.5+

Quick start (developer build)

# Configure, build, and test in one step
cmake --workflow --preset workflow-dev-unix-static-debug

Step by step

cmake --preset dev-unix-static-debug
cmake --build --preset build-dev-unix-static-debug
ctest --preset test-dev-unix-static-debug

Preset roles

Role	Description
client	Plain build, no extra tooling
dev	Clang, warnings-as-errors, ASan + UBSan, coverage, clang-tidy, cppcheck
ci-strict	Clang, warnings-as-errors, sanitizers
ci-static	Clang, warnings-as-errors, clang-tidy, cppcheck

Presets follow the naming pattern {role}-{platform}-{linkage}-{build_type}, e.g. dev-unix-static-debug or client-windows-shared.

Running a single test

Tests use Catch2 3.x:

./build/client-unix-static-debug/tests/ut/ut.aide "test name or pattern"
./build/client-unix-static-debug/tests/ut/ut.aide --list-tests
./build/client-unix-static-debug/tests/ut/ut.aide "[tag]"

Build options

The following CMake options are available (most are set automatically by presets):

Option	Default	Description
AIDE_ENABLE_DEMO	ON	Build the demo application
AIDE_ENABLE_COVERAGE	OFF	Enable coverage reporting
AIDE_ENABLE_HARDENING	ON	Enable compiler hardening flags
AIDE_ENABLE_SANITIZER_ADDRESS	platform-dependent	Enable AddressSanitizer
AIDE_ENABLE_SANITIZER_UNDEFINED	platform-dependent	Enable UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer
AIDE_ENABLE_CLANG_TIDY	OFF (client) / ON (dev)	Enable clang-tidy
AIDE_ENABLE_CPPCHECK	OFF (client) / ON (dev)	Enable cppcheck
AIDE_ENABLE_CACHE	OFF (client) / ON (dev)	Enable ccache
AIDE_ENABLE_IPO	OFF	Enable link-time optimization
AIDE_WARNINGS_AS_ERRORS	OFF (client) / ON (dev)	Treat warnings as errors

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License

aIDE is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0.

Important: GPLv3 is a copyleft license. If you embed aIDE in your application and distribute it, your application must also be released under a GPL-compatible open-source license. Embedding aIDE in a closed-source or proprietary application is not permitted under this license.

aIDE includes third-party open-source libraries under their own licenses. See 3rd-party-licenses.md for details.

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Contributing

See the contributing docs for more information.

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Contributors ✨

This project follows the all-contributors specification. Contributions of any kind are welcome.

See the full list of contributors.