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CLion can integrate with CMake to provide code comprehension features.

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Initial setup

After opening the ladybird repository in CLion as a new project, the “Open Project Wizard” window will open.
1

Enable Release preset

Select the Release Preset in the Settings -> Build, Execution and Deployment -> CMake window and check the Enable profile checkbox.
2

Disable Debug preset

Then select the Debug profile and uncheck the Enable profile checkbox.
3

Configure Default toolchain (if needed)

If the build complains that there is no Default Toolchain, go to the Settings -> Build, Execution and Deployment -> Toolchains tab and copy the currently defaulted host toolchain and rename it to Default. Make sure that the compiler chosen has a version supported by the build system.

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Excluding build artifacts

Source files are copied to the Build directory during the build. If you do not exclude them from CLion indexing they will show up in search results. This is often confusing, unintuitive, and can result in you losing changes you have made to files.
To exclude these files navigate to the Project tool window, right-click the Build folder and select Mark Directory as | Excluded.

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Include headers and source files for code insight

To get proper code insight mark the folders AK and Libraries by right-clicking on them and selecting Mark Directory as | Project Sources and Headers.
A symptom of this not being configured correctly is CLion giving a warning for every single file:
The file does not belong to any project target, code insight features might not work properly.

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Code generation settings

To make code generated by CLion match the Ladybird coding style, import the CLionCodeStyleSettings.xml from this directory as code style scheme via Settings -> Editor -> Code Style -> C/C++ -> Scheme -> Cog icon -> Import Scheme...

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CMake error messages

This section outlines common CMake error messages and provides guidance on how to resolve them.

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Unable to find package

You may encounter an error message similar to the following: 
CMake Error at AK/CMakeLists.txt:60 (find_package):
By not providing "Findsimdutf.cmake" in CMAKE_MODULE_PATH, this project has
requested CMake to find a package configuration file for "simdutf", but
CMake could not locate one.
...
This error typically arises when CLion is not configured to use the correct build directory.
Solution: Ensure that CLion’s build directory is set to the correct build directory for the selected profile.Navigate to Settings -> Build, Execution, Deployment -> CMake and in your selected profile, set the Build directory according to the profile:
  • Default -> Build/release
  • Debug -> Build/debug
  • Sanitizer -> Build/sanitizers

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Notes for WSL users

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Toolchain

If the ladybird directory is on the WSL filesystem you need to configure the CLion toolchain to be WSL. To set that up go to File->Settings->Build, Execution, Deployment->Toolchains and click on the + icon, then select WSL. In Toolset select the distribution you have the ladybird directory on.

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Terminal

It is possible to set the embedded terminal in CLion to the one that your WSL distribution provides. This way you can build and run ladybird without leaving the IDE.
The following will only help if you don’t use an X-window server to access qemu. It is possible to install qemu natively on Windows and allow WSL to use it instead of installing qemu first on (wsl) linux and then use X server to launch ladybird inside of it.
1

Locate the terminal emulator

Open CMD with elevated privileges and cd to C:/Program Files/WindowsApps/. The directory is usually hidden and requires additional privileges. You should be able to cd as administrator.dir and look for your distribution in directory names. In case of Ubuntu, it starts with CanonicalGroupLimited.Ubuntu20.04onWindows_2004.2020.424.0_x64. cd to it. The directory should contain the shell executable. In my case it’s named ubuntu2004.exe. Copy absolute/path/to/ubuntu2004.exe.
2

Configure IDE terminal

Go to your IDE settings: File->Settings->Tools->Terminal and paste the path you just copied to shell path. Click OK.
3

Restart CLion

Close CLion and restart.
The default IDE terminal should now be changed to WSL, and now you can run CLion/run.sh. You may also want to copy ladybird/Meta/CLion/run.sh to your project directory and run it from there, so that you don’t have to fight with git every time you modify the script.

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