Good Simple IDE

[rironin]

Hello,

I've used OpenGL in the past for school and used the then-required MS Visual Studio.Net for the assignments. I found it a bit intimidating, and very complicated (I'm sure it's also very useful if you know what you're doing, but...).

Now I'd like to start my own personal project using OpenGL - an application for my own personal use that I don't think will be overly complex by most standards. I was wondering if there were any solid, freely available IDEs that are out there that are particularly useful for people using OpenGL? Failing that, what do you OpenGL programmers out there use to develop your projects? Thanks!

[mikael_aronsson]

Hi !

It depends a little on what compiler you plan to use, if you look at the websites for the different compilers you will find links to some IDE's, have a look at:

MinGW32 (gcc)

The old Watcom compiler is now open source

Another free C++ compiler

If you are going to use C only you could have a peek at LCC which I think comes with an IDE integrated.

Netbeans is also available in a (beta) C++ version (The Java version of Netbeans is outstanding), but I have no idea how the C++ version is.

A lot of users of MinGW are using DevCPP

Hey there,

It depends on the language your going to use I would think.. I use an IDE called Code::Blocks (comes with MINGW). It also has an option to create an OpenGL project, along with other nice options.

If you're using Java, may I suggest Eclipse? You could even still use that with C/C++/C# or many other languages via the plugin system that it provides.

DevCPP is also an amazing IDE for OpenGL too if you are using C/C++.

I have noticed a lot of C# programmers coming out lately with OpenGL/DirectX stuff... SharpDevelop 2.0 is probably one of the best IDE's I've seen for this language, (other than of course VS2005).

LCC also a good choice for Windows systems. Fast, small and nice.

Then there are the Express versions (free to dowload for the time being) of Microsofts C++/C#/J#/VB.NET.. But as you stated, you wanted something else.

[Joe the Programmer]

If you're using a Mac, the obvious choice is Xcode. It can do C/C++ and Java. It has excellent development options, and complains way less than VC++ .

However, this post is probably meaningless, because you're probably not using a Mac .