EDE is a generic interface for managing projects. It specifies a single set of menus and key bindings, while supporting multiple ways to express a project via a build system.
In the subsequent chapters, we will describe the different project types (see Creating a project), as well as the commands to build and debug projects (see Building and Debugging).
In EDE, a project hierarchy matches a directory hierarchy. The project’s topmost directory is called the project root, and its subdirectories are subprojects.
Each project can contain multiple targets. A target, at the simplest level, is a named collection of files within a project. A target can specify two different types of information:
Lastly, EDE provides a way for other tools to easily learn file associations. For example, a program might need to restrict some sort of search to files in a single target, or to discover the location of documentation or interface files. EDE can provide this information.