EclipseCon 2008 is now open for submissions. I’m part of a few categories (“tracks”) this year and leading the Eclipse as a Platform track. If you have interesting uses of Eclipse as a platform, have enabling technology that allows Eclipse to grow further as a runtime, or even have interesting stories to tell about how you or your company used Eclipse as a runtime, please submit something! I hope to see something from cool projects like the Rich Ajax Platform (RAP) or the embedded Rich Client Platform (eRCP) that explain their usage of Eclipse as a runtime.
Marlboro Man and the Equinox Summit
By Chris Aniszczyk
My first day in Ottawa and all I can think about is the Marlboro Man. I guess since arrived late into Ottawa this evening for the Equinox Summit, I was blessed with a hotel room that was probably occupied by the Marlboro Man before I arrived. Since the hotel is full, I have to endure the smoky smell until tomorrow 😀
On the Eclipse-side of things, I released changes for 3.4M3 that will upgrade Bundle-RequiredExecutionEnvironment (BREE for short) from coach to first class (thank you Gary Duprex for your patches and patience). Why are BREE’s good? Read PaScaL’s blog post.
In the new plug-in project wizard, you’ll see an option to set your target environment:
Also, we now flag missing BREE’s in honor of Remy Suen who may suffer from a heart attack if people don’t set BREEs in their bundles.
Note: I know you can have multiple BREE’s per bundle, but we currently don’t support this scenario in the new plug-in project wizard due to the rarity. If additional BREE’s need to be added, PDE offers a fantastic forms-based editor and a source editor with code completion.
Thanks Mylyn
By Chris Aniszczyk
On my way to the Equinox Summit with a 160 minute layover in Chicago, I was hacking a bug to add execution environment selection and validation to PDE (thanks Gary) when I noticed this in a recent build of Mylyn:
Thanks Mylyn! I was waiting for the ability to edit those Bugzilla keywords. Now we just need to figure out how to work with bugzilla flags without me opening a web browser.
By the way, if you haven’t tried out Mylyn, I’d recommend it. It has some nifty features that I can’t live without these days:
- offline bugzilla browsing while on an airplane
- ability to attach contexts to bugs to help new contributors navigate the PDE codebase
- ability to apply patches from within Eclipse without opening a silly web browser
- somewhat easy screenshot attachment to bugs
September Eclipse BugDay
By Chris Aniszczyk
Just a reminder for people that the next Eclipse BugDay is coming up. There’s a bit more projects participating this time around. If you really want to help out a project in need, check out the Visual Editor’s (VE) list of bugs (VE Contributing Guide). They really need help with general triage to get the project moving again.
If you want to take a stab at one from the PDE camp, here’s one:
- [201994] – NLS wizard should include localization file in build.properties
Thanks!
Sneak peak at PDE 3.4M2
By Chris Aniszczyk
Eclipse 3.4M2 is coming out tomorrow so I figure I would give people a sneak peak at some of the PDE features for M2 (I can’t give it all away).
- Quickfix around access restrictions
- Problems with unresolved classes? PDE can help.
- Improved editor functionality (drag and drop in manifest editor, highlighting externalized strings in source editors)
- My little Plug-in Spy (ALT+SHIFT+F1) makes its debut. It may not be completely perfect yet, but it’s a good start at easing some significant pain in the Eclipse community. Look for some cooler features like menu sniffing in M3.
Lotus Symphony
By Chris Aniszczyk
Today, Lotus announced that it is giving away its productivity tools for free, branded as Lotus Symphony (currently out in beta form).
What’s neat about this from an Eclipse perspective? Well first off, Lotus Symphony is an RCP application (technically based on Lotus Expeditor). Another interesting tidbit is the possibility of extending the editors using well-known Eclipse semantics like extensions and extension points.
In the end, it’s an interesting use of Eclipse in my opinion.
VE, 3.3 and Beyond
By Chris Aniszczyk
It looks like the VE project may get some fresh life breathed into soon with the addition of some new committers. If you want to use VE in 3.3, check out this bug or this link for a direct download.
A lot of thanks is owed to Philippe Ombredanne and Erik Hecht for constantly pushing this issue. Thanks guys!
I think I’m going to dedicate the next Eclipse BugDay in doing some triage for VE. There are over 500 bugs open and I think a little community triage would be nice to help give this project a reboot.
Spying, WorkingSets, Log View
By Chris Aniszczyk
So, it’s been busy in PDE land this week. Plus, there’s a lot of excitement regarding Austin City Limits… I mean 130 bands… Bob Dylan… Bjork… Muse…
Here’s some items to keep people in the loop:
- The famous log view from PDE is considering leaving us for greener pastures
- All new project wizards can take advantage of working sets now… like PDE.
- Plug-in Spy makes its debut in this week’s I-build (select something and press ALT+SHIFT+F1)
August Eclipse BugDay Results
By Chris Aniszczyk
I just wanted to let everyone know how the last Eclipse BugDay went. There were 30 bugs that were solved by 10+ contributors. Good stuff. I hope to attract more projects for the next Eclipse BugDay which will occur on September 28th. If you’re part of an Eclipse project and want to participate, check out the FAQ and feel free to ask me any questions on IRC.
If someone wants to get an early start on bug day and happens to love working sets, here’s an easy one from PDE:
[202797] – Plug-in working set description
Or if you don’t like the color yellow, here’s another one:
[174191] – [Manifest Editor] Extension attribute tool tip is yellow on Vista
I’ll do my best to add some interesting ones for the next bug day from the PDE bucket when I triage the whole inbox later this week.
User Assistance Article
By Chris Aniszczyk
My favorite IBM new hire Adam Archer and user assistance guru Chris Goldthorpe have a new article out on Eclipse Corner. It’s entitled, Adding Help Support to a Rich Client Platform (RCP) Application and is full of goodies like adding context-related help to your RCP applications.
Give it a read!