Which IDE(s) do ROS developers use? [closed]

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I've found QtCreator to be easier to use than Eclipse, as it natively supports CMakeLists which are part of every ROS package. You just need to launch QtCreator from a terminal (NOT from the GUI menu) and it will have all the necessary environment variables to operate correctly.

I know that you specifically leave out vim and emacs in your consideration here, but I have to say, a well-tuned VIM install will do just about anything that you want.

I have a few plugins of choice for VIM:

1. NerdTree: Brings up a split pane with your current working directory contents. Navigating using the same VIM keys, and allows you to change directory, files, move, copy, and most other filesystem operations.

2. Ctags: Most people who use UNIX are probably versed with Ctags, but it bears repeating. Generates a list of "tags" such as functions, classes, and variables. This can then be accessed in a split-pane on VIM. Python and C(++) compatible.

3. Yankring: Provides a buffer of previously copied text. Wonderful for keeping track of multiple copy-pastes as well as delete history.

The benefit of using VIM, in my opinion, is that I am frequently connecting to my robot over an ssh connection, and often don't want a full-blown IDE. When I am working in a terminal, I can open Vim right there, without switching back to an IDE. Vim is also common (in one form or another) on many, many systems (except for Ubuntu by default, for some reason). Vim provides me the power of an IDE without the weight of something like Eclipse.

Also, if the whole texty-console thing scares you (or learning vim, for that matter), solutions like MacVIM and GVIM provide a nice GUI interface, and use many of the system commands for copy, paste, etc.

EDIT: Adding ROS tags to your OmniCppComplete Answers: Vim Code Complete Under ROS

I think rosemacs does a pretty good job, especially if you hack a lot and have to ssh into stuff remotely

JetBrains (of IDEA fame) has recently released a beta for CLion, a C/C++ IDE. It pulls in project data via CMakeLists.txt, so it works with ROS workspaces out of the box. It really blows away QtCreator and Eclipse in terms of usability (although a little rough around the edges being a beta), and the roadmap looks very impressive.

Make sure to start the IDE from bash, or update the .desktop definition similar to QtCreator.

Somebody took the IDE out of emacs without telling me. ;)

I use RoboWare Studio. It can be found on http://wiki.ros.org/IDEs . The introduction is as follows:

RoboWare Studio is an IDE based on VSCode and is specially designed for ROS (indigo/jade/kinetic). With a double-click installation, RoboWare Studio can automatically detect and load ROS environment without additional configuration. The “out-of-the-box” feature helps developers pick it up and figure it out quickly. It provides an intuitive graphical interface for developers to create ROS workspace/package, add source files, create messages/services/actions, list generated packages/nodes, etc. Meanwhile, The CMakeLists.txt file can be updated automatically. It supports release-build and debug-build. Developers can debug C++ and Python codes right from the editor, with break points, call stacks, and an interactive console. It also displays ROS packages and nodes in the interface.

If I'm sitting in front of a big monitor then screen real estate is cheap and I use Eclipse. If I am coding on a robot, I bring up vim.

bumping on an old question, but I needed to ramble about it...

I've been using Eclipse to code in ROS for about 2 years now. I like code completion, tooltips, and occasionally debugging in a GUI. Overall it works OK.

BUT:

• it's way too slow.
  • Building is about 3 times slower than in the terminal
  • the indexer frequently takes minutes to complete, meanwhile slowing down the GUI
  • the GUI sometimes becomes unresponsive for no apparent reasons
• it does not understand relation between packages, so if I have packages A and B, B depending on A, both open in the workspace as separate projects, if I make a change in A/a.h, and Ctrl+B (build all projects in the workspace), then it won't recompile files in B that depend on A/a.h ... I have to be aware of it and manually force recompilation of those files, either by clean and build which is slow, or touch the files and build which is tedious. I guess I could manually add inter projects dependencies but then that's going to be tedious to manage manually...
• I am using ccache to speed up compilation and I am very happy with it. I have /usr/local/bin/gcc (and g++ and others), as symlinks to ccache. But for some reason eclipse does not use it. I don't know what it's using and it's scary. I suppose it's using /usr/bin/gcc but who knows
• the indexer occasionally cannot find some objects (variables, methods, etc.). Sometimes even if it's within one single project.
• I had to allow eclipse to use 8GB of memory in eclipse.ini so that the indexer wouldn't freeze the whole GUI. I can afford it but that seems ridiculous. I also tried using oracle's JRE but I didn't notice any improvement in term of memory management or speed.
• some build errors (in particular linker errors) are not always reported properly

Reading about previous answers, I guess I'll give QtCreator a try.

Feeling better already, had to let some steam out... ;)

EDIT: I did switch to QtCreator a couple of months ago, and I've never looked back!

Just for reference, we use an eclipse plugin for cmake that does text highlighting for cmake.