HaiQ 0.2.0 for Windows released

Handcoder’s IDE for Qt is now known as “HaiQ”, and version 0.2.0 for Windows has been released.

The software has been improved substantially, thanks in large part to feedback received from this forum, as well as the addition of a very talented Stephan Tiltz to the development effort! Please continue to provide us with bug reports, and feature requests.

The Windows version has been fully tested, and ready to use, binary out of the box. Linux version compiles cleanly, but needs some testing (download and compile the win32 source code).

Some key features:

Stability
For all downloads of HiQt and HaiQ, we have received only one report of a crash - it was fixed within a day. Providing a crash free IDE is highest priority.

Project Parsing
HaiQ is fundamentally different from other IDEs for Qt4, including Visual Studio and KDevelop (AFAIK), because it treats the project (.pro) file as source code. Users maintain this file, just as they maintain any other source file. HaiQ detects changes to the project file in real time, updating the file/class browsers and everything. Loading of .pro and .pri files is 100% accurate because it uses a modified “qmake” to do the parsing. HaiQ will never write to your files without an explicit request to do so.

Integrated documentation browser
Press F1 on a Qt keyword in your source file to bring up the corresponding help doc.
Also, generate integrated documentation for your project (uses Doxygen).

Code completion
Nothing too fancy. Reliable, accurate, and fast.
The accuracy of code completion has been improved, and an option has been added to auto-complete upon typing left parenthesis.

Code navigation
Double click a word in your source file to bring up a list of tag locations – places where that class or function was declared, defined, etc. Backward and forward buttons to navigate code.

Preferred file list
Maintain a list of preferred files for your project for convenient access.

Editor
New editor features include optional line numbers, braces/parenthesis highlighting and an assistant-style search panel.

Regarding interface to QScintilla, we decided to hold off on including this with version 0.2.0. The only feature in our QScintilla module that is not presently included in our QTextEdit-based module is code folding. While useful, we did not feel that this was worthy of requiring dependency on the QScintilla library, especially in light of some limitations we found with the QScintilla API. Eventually, QScintilla editor component will be released as an optional plugin.

Customizable new project templates
Start a new project by choosing from a collection of basic new project templates, or easily create your own template.

HaiQ S.T.U.F.F.
The priorities for HaiQ, in approximate order of importance are:
* Stability = no crashes
* Transparency = open your .pro files without fear
* Usability
* Flexibility
* Functionality

Therefore, we consider seriously before adding features. That is, we add functionality when the program is ready, and when it will not take away from the other priorities (stability, transparency, usability, flexibility). For this reason, we removed one component from the program (QObjectBrowser), but expect it to return in a future version when time is right.

I hope you enjoy the program!