Hallo Fabian,
I fully agree with you: makefile is a nightmare!
I've found the very interesting project Ino. Basically, Ino is a command line Arduino IDE and does all the dirty job of pre-processing, build and compiling, uploading and monitoring. Once Arduino is installed, Ino requires no additional configuration.
Most important, Ino does work on my MacBook.
Take a look: it may help you and speed up your development dramatically!
So you could focus on adding nice features to the editor as code completion with quick help, automatic delimiter balancing, placeholders in code completion text for parameters, object browser, jump to definition, ... All the niceties a more professional IDE brings.
Good luck with your final examinations! 