I’d thought I share this blog entry by Gabor Pecosy comparing OSGi and Android. I just came across this today and found it an interesting read with my morning coffee + espresso shot.
On a related note, at EclipseCon, Neil Bartlett and BJ Hargrave will be giving a talk on Android/OSGi.
Just a reminder that today is the last day to vote for the Individual Eclipse Awards.
Go express yourself by voting 🙂
I have a new feature that I put in PDE that I’m requesting feedback on. I need feedback soon since I will disappear and bury myself in EclipseCon preparation and also be vacationing in Whistler, BC for a week.
I created a new schema attribute type called ‘identifier’ that can be used when you define your extension points. Instead of explaining things in words, I like to do things using pictures:
In the picture above, I’m working with the ‘pespectiveExtensions’ extension point. If you’re familiar with this extension point, it allows you to extend perspectives defined in other plug-ins. It lets you do this by referencing the id of an already defined perspective, but this suffers from the magical identifier problem in Eclipse. To help with this issue, I’ve modified the pespectiveExtensions extension point to have its ‘targetID’ field be of type ‘identifier’ and be based on perspective ids (in simple terms).
Now what does this look like to end users working with the ‘perspectiveExtensions’ extension point? Look at the figure below:
Now, instead of the ‘targetID’ field being just a string, it becomes hyperlinkable along with a ‘Browse…’ button that when clicked, displays all the valid identifiers for this attribute (in this case, it’s all the perspective ids found). On top of that, if you notice in the Problems view, identifiers that don’t belong will be properly flagged with a warning.
If you want to toy with this functionality and provide feedback, checkout the latest I-build of Eclipse where Paul Webster assisted me in the PDE kitchen by modifying some of the Platform UI extension points. Try to create a command with keybinding now >:)
Thanks to Paul Webster and Remy Suen for motivating me to finish this feature.
Note: There’s no guarantee that this feature is set in stone yet so don’t go changing all your extension points just yet. The PDE kitchen is closed until I get back from Whistler 🙂
I’m so filled with joy that EclipseCon is coming up that I can’t contain it.
I’m really excited about the exercise activity (trail map) planned by Darin Swanson. According to Darin, there are lots of people signed up and there’s some goodies in store for people. It’s just amazing to see how far the running activity has gone after I nagged Darin to death (sorry!) to set something up like this at EclipseCon… hopefully more technical conferences will follow suit.
Most importantly, running at EclipseCon is a good way to help combat Donald Smith’s Dilemma:
Note: A word to the wise, anyone wearing an “Ask Me About” sticker gets you an extra drink ticket at the evening events 🙂
So, in the next release of Eclipse (or the next I-build), you will be able to quickly browse to your exported package of choice via the Open Plug-in Artifact (Ctrl+Shift+A) dialog:
Hopefully this makes plug-in development a bit more enjoyable 🙂
I like discovering things I didn’t know existed. I feel like that ape from space odyssey today:
I had a colleague ping me today and ask how he could full-screen his RCP-based application. I recall there being a Eclipse Google SOC project on this topic so I pointed him there. To my delight, the project was a success (good job Benny!) and has already found its way into the SDK for the 3.4 version of Eclipse. For an example, I patched my favorite RCP Browser Example to allow full-screen goodness:
The only issue left with the fullscreen functionality is proper workbench integration and that is being tracked with this bug. I’m sure the Platform UI team would love help with the bug if you have some cycles to spare for the upcoming Eclipse BugDay.
For those who are curious, GEF is planning to move to J2SE-1.5 soon. I’m not the biggest fan of moving up Java levels if there’s no good reason to as it usually crushes my dreams of having things run on the current level of embedded devices out there. For example, I bugged Ed awhile ago to consider making a certain version of EMF workable on J2ME. Some time passed and Ed actually got EMF working on eRCP… exposing EMF technology to a whole new audience. I’d imagine someone wanting Draw2D or GEF functionality on a device sometime in the future (I believe RAP people are experimenting with Draw2D working in a browser).
Please raise your concerns or praises about GEF moving to J2SE-1.5 on the bug. It’s always nice to have your voice heard.
I turned on my instant messenger software this morning and got bombarded by two-related questions. The first question was in regards to how to find and use the ‘Organize Manifests’ wizard within PDE. That was easy to answer. The next question was roughly the same as the previous but dealt with the ‘Externalize Strings’ wizard. When I answered where the wizard was, I said just check out the ‘Exporting’ section of the Manifest editor’s Overview page…
He told me my answer was wrong.
I guess I had a different picture of what should be in that section than what is really there (ooops). What does a crafty Eclipse committer due to make sure he doesn’t look wrong? The solution is to quickly write a patch and make sure it gets into the next build and claim that the option would be there if you used the latest and greatest:
See, I was right 🙂
Just a reminder that EclipseCon 2008 is coming up and it’s a good time to register before prices go up (don’t be that guy that registers on Valentine’s Day!).
I had the honor to be on the EclipseCon Program Committee this year which was quite a challenge given all the great talks submitted this year. I’m really proud of the Eclipse as a Platform and RCP tracks as it was a challenge trying to balance those two tracks. In terms of what I’m speaking about this year, check this out:
As always, I’ll be available to discuss open source and Eclipse over a frosty beverage. I hope to see you there!
I was helping a colleague debug an issue in regards to self-hosting today and the solution took a lot longer to find given how simple the problem was. The problem could have been easily solved if we validated our launch configuration before we actually launched. There’s an option to validate (off by default) to prevent headaches:
Note that if you have a really large product, validation can take a little while so that’s why this option is off by default.
Thanks for using PDE!