If you understand how makefiles work, there's really no reason to try to make the IDE do the work. Makefiles can be pretty simple. I just use a light and simple IDE (Geany) to edit the code and makefile, then run "make" in a terminal (Geany keeps a terminal in the message window, so that's one way to do it, or you can open a terminal as well).
I rather like Geany - it's light weight, it handles syntax coloring for a multitude of languages, it has its own terminal, and it's available for just about any platform. If you're on linux, Geany is generally in the repo. If you're on Windows, you'll find it here:
http://www.geany.org/Download/Releases
There's a version with gtk+ for Windows (required), or a version without gtk+ if you've already got it installed.