GUI-based build system

[Joe Francia]

Hung Jung Lu wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Does anyone know whether there is any generic GUI-based build system
> around? (Python-based would be great. Also, for now I am only looking
> for Windows OS.) By "build system" I mean something similar the
> "make/makefile" system, but somewhat more
> generic/powerful/flexible/higher-level/etc, so that if you have a
> sequence (maybe even some simple conditional branches and loops) of
> system tasks to perform, you can more easily visualize the steps, and
> perhaps resume from some middle point. If it has e-mail capability to
> send out final status, even better. :) If it can work both
> interactively and a an fire-and-forget stand-alone, even better. :)
> 
> (I don't mind writing simple wrappers to each individual tasks to
> produce standardized responses for the build system.)
> 
> My guess is that there are many utilities like that out there already.
> Another guess is that some of them use XML for task specification. One
> more guess is that some of them are free. But, I could be wrong. :)
> 

You may want to look at Ant. ( http://ant.apache.org ) Ant is a free, 
Java-based make tool (probably usable from Jython), but "without make's 
wrinkles".  It can do anything Java can do, such as send an email at the 
end of the process.  It uses XML as the project makefiles.  It shouldn't 
be too much work to wrap Ant in a nice wxPython (or whatever) GUI 
(especially if you can use Jython).  You may also want to look at 
Eclipse ( http://www.eclipse.org ), a Java-based (but highly extensible) 
IDE which uses Ant for its build process.

Peace,
Joe