As you've been noticing, most of our project templates are created by trial-and-error
This is *so* untrue...
Switching to target: default
Compiling: main.cpp
Command execution failed...
Enable the C::B debug log (Settings->Environment), restart C::B, recompile your project and when the "Command execution failed..." message appears, switch to the "Code::Blocks Debug" message tab and see what command is failing to execute. Please post this command here.
Have you tried compiling other stuff? Only the SDL template behaves like that?
I 'm asking because, usually, the "Command execution failed..." message appears when C::B is badly configured.
Create a new console project and build it. Does it build or not?
Yiannis.