Slow down, to clarify, the repository is not just for "Jar's", it is for
any release distributions. An Eclipse plugin for, lets say, Ant, would
be a distributable, just like any other binary or src distribution in
the repository. In Eclipse, a plugin archive is "poorly" prefixed with
the extension "jar", it is really a zip archive containing everything
for that plugin (from what I understand, this will change in the future
and it will truly be a jar, but that is an aside). The repository can
hold these files and referencing them using a site.xml could happen from
just about anywhere else (such as the project website).
-Mark Diggory
Jeffrey Liu wrote:
Hi Dion,
Thanks for your response. The existing repository won't work. Unlike a
Java application, putting JARs on the classpath is not sufficient to make
Eclipse aware of these libraries. Eclipse needs to work with something
known as an Eclipse plug-in, which is really the JARs themselves plus a
couple XML configuration files. So, in order to make use of the Eclipse
update manager, we need to bundle the JARs, the XML configuration files
and other files such as license/readme/etc together in the form of an
Eclipse plug-in.
Thanks,
Jeffrey Liu
IBM Rational Software - Performance Analyst
IBM Toronto Lab.
8200 Warden Ave. Markham, Ontario, L6G 1C7
Internal mail: D3/R8V/8200/MKM (D3-268)
T/L: 969 3531
Tel: (905) 413 3531
Fax: (905) 413 4920
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dion Gillard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
05/03/2005 10:33 AM
Please respond to
general
To
[email protected]
cc
Subject
Re: Proposal for a centralized Eclipse update manager site for Apache
projects/software
Is there a reason we can't reuse the existing repository at
http://www.apache.org/dist/java-repository/ ?
In your example, Eclipse could be configured to check
http://www.apache.org/dist/java-repository/axis/jars/ for an update?
On 5/3/05, Jeffrey Liu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi,
I want to propose a centralized Eclipse update manager site for Apache
projects/software. This may not be the correct place to ask this, but I
can find a better place to do it, so I decided to start here. If this is
not the right place, can somebody point me to the correct location?
Thanks! Reason I propose an Eclipse update manager site for Apache
projects/software is because Eclipse projects such as the Web Tools
Platform (WTP) project often reuses software that are provided by
Apache,
for example, Axis, Tomcat, Derby, etc... Often times, these Apache
software are not redistributed by the Eclipse projects, but instead,
they
are listed as prerequisites. This means, end users must first download
the
Eclipse project and all the Apache software prereq by the project, and
configure these software in the Eclipse project before they can get
started. This is error prone and hampers the out-of-the-box experience.
Imagine the following scenario:
A user downloads WTP. Unzip it and starts it up. S/he wants to create an
Axis Web service. S/he launches the wizard that creates a Web service,
but
finds out s/he needs Tomcat and Axis. So s/he opens up her Web browser,
goes to the Apache Web site and looks for the download page for Tomcat
and
Axis. S/he downloads and unzips Tomcat and Axis to the file system. Goes
back to WTP and manually configures Tomcat and Axis into her workspace.
S/he launches the wizard again and move on.
This is easier than said. If there's an Eclipse update manager site for
Apache software, then when the user finds out s/he needs Tomcat and
Axis,
all s/he needs to do now is launch the Eclipse update manager (URL to
the
Apache update site will be preloaded), select Tomcat and Axis and click
Finish. The Eclipse update manager will download, install and configure
Tomcat and Axis automatically. This is much better than asking the user
to
download and configure things manually. Also, this Eclipse update
manager
site is very useful when new versions of a Apache software is available.
For example:
Say Eclipse WTP 1.0 ships with Axis 1.2 support. If later on, Axis
releases a critical fix for Axis 1.2's WSDL2Java emitter, then without
an
update site, we'll need to do one of the following...
1. Rebuild WTP 1.0 with the Axis fix
2. Ask users to manually update WTP
3. Wait for the next version of WTP.
None of the above sound attractive. If there's an Eclipse update manager
site setup for Apache, then end users can search and install new updates
automatically by making just a few clicks. I believe this advances the
integration between open source software that are provided in different
domains (Apache, Eclipse, etc). I think this can benefit the open source
community and can grow the open source ecosystem.
Do I need to propose a new Apache project for something like this?
Suggestions/comments are welcomed.
Thanks,
Jeffrey Liu
IBM Rational Software - Performance Analyst
IBM Toronto Lab.
8200 Warden Ave. Markham, Ontario, L6G 1C7
Internal mail: D3/R8V/8200/MKM (D3-268)
T/L: 969 3531
Tel: (905) 413 3531
Fax: (905) 413 4920
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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