Noxfly Project Manager

A free, lightweight and open-source project manager for linux C/C++ projects.

Always struggled to manage a project where every members of the team are in different OS, with different IDE ?

This scripts helps you improve your time by :

• Managing packages, config, compilation and run
• for cross-env development
• whether for a personal or team project with a lightweight configuration and use.

The configuration file is in yml, and accepts comments.

A runnable open-source project that uses nfpm can be tested here (NoxEngine).

Prerequisites

For now, the use of this script only works in a Unix like environment (Linux, MacOS, MingW, Cygwin, ...). However, I'll manage to make it usable by Visual Studio a day. Feel free to help me improve and contribute this script !

Bash 4 is required for the script to work.

Installation and use

Make this command to download the script and make it globally available on your computer. Adapt to your OS.

# wGET
sudo wget --https-only -O /usr/local/bin/nf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NoxFly/nfpm/refs/heads/main/nf.sh
# cURL
sudo curl --fail --location --output /usr/local/bin/nf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NoxFly/nfpm/refs/heads/main/nf.sh
# Permission to execute, and read/write for updating itself when requested
sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/nf
# Test :
nf --version
nf --help # get global help message
nf <cmd> --help # get command specific usage informations

Basic commands

Add the -v or --verbose flag to put some commands in verbose mode.

Update the script

# Download the latest version of the script
nf --update
nf -U

Create, compile and run a project

# new project
nf new
# build
nf build
# [build] + run
nf run
# build as shared library
# if a main.c[pp] file is found, it ignores it during the compilation of the library.
# it allows you to make tests easiers.
nf run --shared
# run a test with the project as shared library
# the project must be compile to shared library before
# the argument is the file name of the example to run, in the exampels/ folder
# for instance, for running examples/foo.cpp :
nf example foo
# note that the example must start by "//!shared" to tell nfpm that the example is
# executing with the project as shared library. In the future, it will be able to
# include the project as static library, or as grouped executable.

The new command can take parameters to customize the project directly from the beginning.

If you wish to create a new nf project with already existing code structure, then running the new command will just create a project.yml and missing stuff.

All the parameters are optional.

A path can be specified as first argument. If not present, it will create a new project in the current directory.

# these are the default values
nf new . --name=NewProject --lang=cpp --mode=0 --guard=ifndef
# example of a non default base configuration
nf new ./poc --name=poc --lang=c --mode=1 --guard=pragma

# with verbose :
nf new -v

# if no language specified and not set in global config
# it will ask you :
nf new
# Choose the project language (c/CPP):
# (cpp is chosen if you hit Enter with blank value)

Note : specifying a name during the nf new command via the --name argument does not allow spaces in it. Don't worry, you'll can change it later thanks a dedicated command (see below).

Files generation

# create a class depending the current project's architecture
ng generate class MyClass

# Or, shorter
nf g c MyClass

# architecture mode 0 generates this :
# src/MyClass.cpp
# include/MyClass.hpp

# architecture mode 1 generates this :
# src/MyClass/MyClass.cpp
# src/MyClass/MyClass.hpp

nf g c core/MyClass
# if folders of the specified path do not exist
# it will create them

Libraries

You can manage easily libraries in your project.

Associate a keywork to one or more packages that will be used by your project.

Then, when a someone else goes in your project, he just have to ask the script to download them all !

To add some packages

nf add GLEW libglew-dev
nf add SDL2 libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev

# example output :
# 3 added, 2 installed, 0 failed in 0m 4s 656ms

Your project configuration file will then have these lines added :

dependencies:
  GLEW: libglew-dev
  SDL2: libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev

If a package is not installed on your computer, it will try to install it. If it fails, the package won't be added to your project's configuration.

These lines are always sorted alphabetically (ascending) by their key.

/!\ Note : The dependency name (the key) should be the "official" name of the library so CMake can recognize it and dynamically find what to include from it. In general, for lib<name>-dev, it the key must be name (- are replaced by _).

Ask to install all packages :

nf install # or nf i

If a package is already installed on your computer, it will just skip it in the installation process.

Remove or uninstall packages

nf remove SDL2 # or nf rm
# SDL2 packages have been removed from the project.
nf remove --uninstall SDL2
# SDL2 packages have been removed from the project.
# libsdl2-dev uninstalled.

List packages of a project

If you are lazy to the point to not open the project.yml file, you can have the same view of the dependencies used in the project doing this :

nf list # or nf l
# ├─  GLEW: libglew-dev
# ├─  SDL2: libsdl2-dev
# ├─  SDL2_image: libsdl2-image-dev
# └─  SDL2_ttf: libsdl2-ttf-dev

Project's management

The following commands help you manage your project easily.

It is recommended to NOT modify by yourself the project.yml file, even for overview.

To change things in your project.yml, do the following command, with key begin a key that exists in this file, inside the project or config section

nf set <key> <value>

# For instance :
nf set name My super project
# results in :
#   - `name: My Super Project` inside the project.yml file
#   - updates the project's name also in the cmake file (capitalized) : MySuperProject

nf set author NoxFly
nf set license MIT

nf set mode 1
# this lets you switch between architectures.
# it moves your files accordingly.
# if it fails, it backups.

If an author is set, copyrights will automatically added at the beginning of created files with the nf g command.

If a license is set in addition to the author, it is added below the author.

Update the version of your project :

nf patch
nf minor
nf major