I’m just getting started using JUCE. I plan an open source project for what should be very simple: a piano resonance convolver that responds to the sustain pedal, with a user-supplied filter kernel (aka “impulse” file.)
I’m a retired embedded systems and networking software engineer, using Linux for development and sometimes target since the 90’s (and extensive UNIX before that.) I prefer dev work on Linux. But I use Windows for everyday apps and also for my music stuff (though I now also use Debian on a Raspberry Pi.) I currently have one Windows computer with WSL. I’d hoped to do JUCE development on WSL, but VS Community isn’t supported on Linux, and I read that VSCode just doesn’t integrate well with JUCE (or perhaps just with ProJucer.)
I get the impression that I’d be better off developing in Windows, using VS Community.
l’ve used several IDEs including mostly Eclipse but also VSCode. I admit I usually fall back to my bad old habits of vi and ctags, though. But with a whole new field to learn about and debug in, I’m probably better off with an IDE, especially one often used in tutorials.
Most of my work has been cross-development with running/debugging on hardware (like Cisco routers, or in cloud VMs, or computers that control car engines, etc.) Frankly, this should be easier, and since it’s a hobby, that’s a good thing!
I’d appreciate any suggestions! I’ve already read a number of related topics, and I get the impression that Windows with VS is the easiest to get started. After that I might switch to Linux in order to simplify setting up a project on Github (that is, making it as easy as possible for contributors.) I’ve never used CMake, which is probably best for open-source. I doubt I’ll need much help on this project but I have other projects in mind for the future.
I’d recommend installing a copy of the CLion IDE. It’s cross-platform, so you can have a very similar experience on Linux and Windows (and macOS if you need that in the future). It’s also free for non-commercial use. This is definitely the best option on Linux.
If you would prefer to use Windows, then you’ll almost certainly need a copy of Visual Studio installed along with the C++ workload, to provide an appropriate compiler toolchain. Once you’ve got VS installed, you can use either the Projucer or CMake to generate VS projects. The Projucer is a bit more beginner-friendly, but CMake is easy enough to learn. You can also open a CMake project directly in CLion, if you don’t mind having both VS and CLion installed.
If you’re new to JUCE, you might find the JUCE Course helpful as a starting-point. It walks you through setting up your computer for JUCE development. You can sign up for the course here:
I’d suggest getting rid of anything requiring the Projucer as soon as possible and switching to Cmake, but yeah, for beginners that can be tough because most beginner materials only cover how to set up/do things with the Projucer.
Yes, CLion won’t work with Projucer. But given that you are experienced in coding, CLion + CMake might be a easier start, compared to VS + Projucer. At least to me, CLion + CMake is easier than XCode + Projucer.
BTW, the mentioned JUCE course also uses CLion + CMake. So you could start with them if you follow the course.
There is no problem to develope on Linux. You can use Clion, qtcreator, vs code or whatever you want. You can build Projucer but I recommend cmake. I use Neovim with clangd LSP and this works fine for me.
