noob friendly IDE for MAC

[Lp_baez]

I am looking for a noob friendly C++ IDE for mac computers. I'm looking something similar to microsoft visual studio. I have tried xcode, but it appears to be missing some of the basic cpp. and h. files like stdafx.

[Schol-R-LEA]

Actually, the stdafx header is specific to Windows, and to Visual Studio in particular. Most other C++ compilers are only going to have the Standard C++ libraries, plus whatever system libraries are used on that OS. Since MacOS X has FreeBSD as it's kernel, XCode should provide most if not all the Unix libraries available to it.

OTOH, if you are looking for an IDE that provides drag-and-drop visual design tools, I'm not sure what you would be looking at. I'm not very familiar with XCode, personally, so I don't know what it comes with, or what extensions are available for it. However, I know that there are versions of Eclipse and NetBeans for the Mac, and while both of those are aimed mainly at Java, both have C++ support as well.

For a basic IDE and compiler, I would try Code::Blocks with GCC. It isn't as full featured, but it is fairly easy to use, and has plenty of support.

[mike_2000_17]

stdafx.h is a Microsoft header that is specific to a feature called "pre-compiled headers" that the Visual C++ compiler (among others) provides. This is not a standard header, and you should not expect it to exist on any other platform than on Windows + Visual C++. If you are very much used to working with Visual Studio, you will soon realize how (intentionally) non-standard that platform is when it comes to C++.

The preferred IDE for Mac is definitely Xcode. If you don't like it, you might try the Mac port of CodeBlocks, which is a popular IDE (on any OS). You might also try Qt Creator, especially if you want to do some cross-platform GUI programs. Or Eclipse is another very "noob-friendly" IDE (I would say, "noob-only", but that's just my opinion). Or, you can do like many people do, just use an enhanced text editor, like sublime.

[Lp_baez]

I see. Well I have been working with Visual Studio for most of my time. I thought almost everything there was standard, thats the only reason why I started learning with MVS. I was looking around the web to try and find a code that that does the same as the stdafx, but I did not find any. Is there a code that has the same functions as the stdafx file? to be able to separate the functions' methods and declarations into a different file. Thank you guys for the reply.

[Paul.Esson]

You can seperate the function declarations and implementations into different files without stdafx.

Just create a file YourClass.h as well as YourClass.cpp then include your .h file in your .cpp file using the #include preprocessor directive.

[mike_2000_17]

I was looking around the web to try and find a code that that does the same as the stdafx, but I did not find any.

You will not find any, because other compilers do not need it. The stdafx header does not provide anything more than some MSVC-specific things that prepare your headers for being pre-compiled. Other compilers implement pre-compiled headers differently, mostly through compiler options (command-line options) instead of stdafx. In other words, you will never need that header on any other platform / compiler. So, don't look for a replacement, just forget that it exists, and take it out of any code that you have.