KTechLab 0.50.0

KTechLab is an IDE for microcontrollers and electronics. It supports circuit simulation, program development for microcontrollers and simulating the programmed microcontroller together with its application circuit.

Introduction

Resources

• KTechLab is joining KDE, all of its assets will be available there.

  • https://community.kde.org/Incubator/Projects/KTechLab

  • current webpage: https://userbase.kde.org/KTechlab TODO better webpage at KDE

  • repository browser at KDE (web based): https://commits.kde.org/ktechlab https://invent.kde.org/sdk/ktechlab

  • source code repository at KDE (to be used with git): [email protected]:sdk/ktechlab.git

  • bugtracker at KDE: https://bugs.kde.org/describecomponents.cgi?product=KTechLab

  • mailing list at KDE: ktechlab-devel at KDE https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/ktechlab-devel Archives contain the messages from the old list, too

• on IRC, KTechLab developers regularly join the channel #ktechlab, on Libera Chat

• source code repositories: see Getting the source section, below

• KTechLab on github (will become deprecated)

  • https://github.com/ktechlab

  • https://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab/wiki

  • https://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab

  • https://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab-0.3 (archive only; merged into the above repoistory)

  • new commits will be always pushed to KDE Git, github will be a mirror only

• KTechLab on sourceforge (mostly deprecated; source code downloads are available)

  • wiki: http://ktechlab.sourceforge.net
  • project page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ktechlab
  • project page for developers: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ktechlab/develop

• the official communucation channel is hosted at KDE; the mailing list on sourceforge will become deprecated; it is called ktechlab-devel

  • link to archives of the list: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum_name=ktechlab-devel

Getting the source

KTechLab's source code is located in a GIT repository.

Official repository is hosted at KDE; its location is at

[email protected]:sdk/ktechlab.git

• repository browser https://invent.kde.org/sdk/ktechlab

• for write access, see section Write access to KTechLab repository at KDE, below.

Deprecated official repositories located on github; they mirror code from KDE, and also have branches named github/* for historical reference. For new code use the KDE Git.

• https://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab

  • the master branch contains the latest tested development code, while other branches might contain untested/unstable code

• https://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab-0.3

  • the port-0.3.8-kde4-v1 branch contains currently the latest code (at the time of origina writing; this branch has become master branch in KDE repositories)

Other notable deprecated GIT repositories are located on sourceforge:

• main KTechLab repository (deprecated, use KDE Git):

  • git://ktechlab.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ktechlab/ktechlab
  • contains the contents of the previously used SVN repository

• developers' own repositories (deprecated, use KDE Git):

  • git://ktechlab.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ktechlab/ktl-alonzotg
  • git://ktechlab.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ktechlab/ktl-j_ohny_b
  • git://ktechlab.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/ktechlab/ktl-zoltan_p
    • the master branch should have the same content as the official master branch from github
  • these repositories contain work-in-progress code, which is supposed to be merged in the master branch on github

Checking out from GIT can be performed with the following commands:

git clone git://github.com/ktechlab/ktechlab.git
cd ktechlab

Building and Running

Required dependencies

• Qt5 -dev
• cmake
• glib -dev
• Extra Cmake Modules (ECM)
• KDE Frameworks 5 libraries -dev (at the time of writing: Config CoreAddons DocTools IconThemes I18n KDELibs4Support KIO Parts TextEditor TextWidgets WidgetsAddons WindowSystem XmlGui)

Optional dependencies

• GPSim -dev, for microcontroller support

In KDE Frameworks 5, all Makefiles in KDE projects are generated using CMake. After checking out the source (see Getting the source), here is how to compile and install KTechLab. CMkake is not a run-time dependency of KTechLab.

1. By using a terminal, navigate to the top-level source-directory

2. Run the shell script build-simple.sh. This command compiles KTechLab into the directory build-simple, installs it into the directory inst-simple and sets up the user-specific settings (syscoca, mime database) for the current user.

     sh build-simple.sh
   

3. Launch KTechLab by running the script run-simple.sh

     sh run-simple.sh
   

KTechLab should start running at this point. If this simple method of launching KTechLab does not work, please contact the developers, because you have found a bug.

Running a build when the source/build/install directory has been moved

It the source directory has been moved, then the setup procedure has to be rerun. This is due to the fact that in the launch scripts of KTechLab, absolute directory paths are generated. The compilation step should be a lot faster than previously, because the source files have not been changed, so the existing build is just verified, not recreated.

     sh build-simple.sh
     sh run-simple.sh

Developing with KDevelop 4 / 5

Just open/import the CMakeLists.txt project file.

Write access to KTechLab repository at KDE

Please read the KDE Git manual:

https://community.kde.org/Sysadmin/GitKdeOrgManual

You need:

1. KDE developer account; should be usable at identity.kde.org ; see https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure/Get_a_Developer_Account

   An SSH key should be registered at KDE and usable on your computer.

2. Set up git for usage with KDE Git Infrastructure https://community.kde.org/Infrastructure/Git https://techbase.kde.org/Development/Git/Configuration git config --global user.name git config --global user.email

    cat ~/.gitconfig
   
    [url "git://anongit.kde.org/"]
        insteadOf = kde:
    [url "[email protected]:"]
        pushInsteadOf = kde:
   

3. Clone KTechLab repository; current location is temporary: git clone kde:scratch/padrah/ktechlab

Pushing should work with the URL rewrite rules from step 2.

Porting to KF5 / Qt5

See

1. https://techbase.kde.org/ECM5/IncompatibleChangesKDELibs4ToECM
2. https://community.kde.org/Frameworks/Porting_Notes
3. https://api.kde.org/frameworks/index.html

Have fun with KTechLab!