Bloodshed Dev C++

Let me start by saying that I cant believe that this application is free. This is all I use even though I got Visual C++ installed on my computer. It is fast and produces the smallest file sizes from any of the compilers I have used.

First, the positives. The IDE is well laid out and resembles VC++ to a large extent. The project bar on the left gives you one click access to all of the files in your project. When you open a project all the files are opened by default so you can get straight to work. Unlike Visual C++, it allows you to work just as easily with files that don't belong to any particular project. It comes with all the tools required including a resource editor which has wizards for creating dialog boxes, menus, adding icons and so on. It also comes with a command line debugger as part of the download although I recommend you download the custom made Win32 debugger separately.

On the negative side, this application cannot match VC++ when it comes to large projects spread over many people. Nor does it have the ready made tools for making database driven applications. Having said that this compiler is not aimed at large corporations. It is meant for stand alone developers looking for a cost effective and easy way to develop C++ programs.

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Setup:

The Various Options:

Fire up Dev C++ and go to Options> Compiler Options.
Check mark the box "Add the directory below to be searched for include files" and in the accompanying text box enter the location of the directory where you will be saving your include files. Do not use directories with spaces and separate multiple entries with semi colons.
Click the linker tab and select "Generate Debugging information". This will ensure that you will be able to debug your programs. Make sure that you uncheck this tab when you are compiler the final release version of your project.
There are other options that you can set for the compiler. The "Code generation / Optimization" tab has some optimizing features. However I would not recommend enabling them unless you are sure that they will not limit the functionality of your program. I find they do not make much of a difference to my programs and so I turn these off.
Read the help file located at "X:\Your Dev C++ installation\Help\DevCpp.hlp" file for detailed explanations on all the options available.

Creating a project:

Click on File>New Project. Here you will be asked what type of project your are looking to build. Select the appropriate option.
You will then be asked for a project name. Enter a name of choice. Remember that the project name will be the name of the final exe.
Choose the location where the project will be saved. I recommend creating separate directories for your projects, especially for the large ones.
I recommend that you make projects for all programs that you write. This not only gets things organized but also sets the compiler settings for the particular project. Now you can start adding files to your projects.

Create/add source file(s).

You should now have a project with one empty and untitled source file. This would be sufficient if we were writing simple programs that relied exclusively on the standard library and/or pre-compiled object code, but we're not.
You can create additional empty source files one of two ways,
Go to the "File" menu and select "New Source File" (or just press CTRL+U) OR Go to the "Project" menu and select "New Unit in Project" (or just press CTRL+F1).

Note that Dev-C++ will not ask for a filename for any source file until you attempt to:
1) Compile
2) Save the project
3) Save the source file
4) Exit Dev-C++
You can add pre-existing source files one of two ways,
Go to the "Project" menu and select "Add to project..." (or just press CTRL+F2) OR Right-click on the project name in the left-hand panel and select "Add to project..." (or just press CTRL+F2).

Compile and Execute:
Once you have entered all of your source code, you are ready to compile.Go to the "Execute" menu and select "Compile" (or just press CTRL+F9). Any errors will be reported in full detail at the bottom of the window. Double click an error message to jump straight to the offending line.

Once your project successfully compiles, you will get a dialog box with several options:

"Continue", which will just take you back to Dev-C++.
"Parameters", which will allow you to pass command-line parameters to your program.
"Execute", which will execute your program.

Debug:
When things aren't happening the way you planned, a source-level debugger can be a great tool in determining what really is going on. From this point forward, I will assume that you have downloaded and installed the Insight debugger

Go to the "Execute" menu and select "Debug" (or just press F8).
After a console window pops up and disappears, the debugger Source Window should appear. If the Source Window is blank, it is likely that you compiled your project without the necessary debugging information (see above).
Passing command-line arguments:
Go to the "File" menu of the Source Window and select "Target Settings..."; select "Exec" from the "Target" drop-down list and enter any command-line arguments (separated by spaces) in the "Arguments:" field. If using filenames as arguments, be sure to include the full file path.
Using the debugger:
The various features of the debugger are pretty obvious. Click the "Run" icon to start your program; "Step" to step through every command; "Next" to execute the next block of code. You can view memory/variables/expressions using the various tools such as Registers, Memory, Watch Expressions and Local Variables

Note that Insight was not originally designed to work with Dev-C++ and may be a bit flaky under certain situations. If you are having too much trouble with Insight and want to go back to the original version you will have to re-install Dev C++. For more information about using GDB, start Dev-C++ and go to "Help", "GNU Debugger help".

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Important Links:

Download links: Click the links to directly download the files

Bloodshed Dev C++ 4.0 (~8.0 Mb)
Insight Debugger (2.76 Mb)

Other Links: Some useful related websites

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Screen Shots:

Here are some screen shots of Dev C++ 4.0 with the Gnome Icons.

	This is how a typical project window will look in Dev C++.
	The Insight Debugger.
	This is the resource editor that comes with Dev C++

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