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Trying to import files without a project defined in the workspace results in an error message appearing in the Import dialog. However, the message doesn't appear until after a directory has been selected, and then after showing the error message, no help is provided to the user. Since Eclipse can detect that the user has not defined a project, it should alert them to this as soon as they choose to import, not after they have gone through the process of selecting a directory. Failing this, when the error message is shown the user should be taken to the appropriate dialog to define a project. I assume that all the necessary code for this improvement is already present - it would just be a matter of adding a button or two.
There should never initially be an error in a wizard. See UI guidelines for wizards (Guideline 5.3): http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-UI-Guidelines/Contents.html#Wizards However, we should be able to change to use the message that says there are no open projects to override the message that is there initially when there are open projects in the workspace. We also avoid invoking a wizard from within another wizard, to be consistent with good practice.
I've read the UI guidelines you mentioned, and I think that they refer to errors caused by the use of the wizard, not violated pre-conditions for the wizard. Certainly, presenting an empty text field and immediately reporting an error because the text field must contain valid text is not helpful, but allowing the user to launch a wizard that cannot successfully complete due to a violated pre-condition is just confusing, especially because the missing element from the IDE's state that will cause the wizard to fail can't be corrected from within the wizard. Since wizards are about making users' lives easier (I assume), why can't a wizard check it's pre-conditions and if they are not met, launch other wizards first to help the user rectify them?
I've thought about this a bit more, and I think that the simple answer is that the 'Import...' function just shouldn't be available if no projects are defined. I think this because the header of the Import... dialogue window says: Import resources from the local file system into an existing project. Given this, it seems that there is no situation in which importing makes sense without any projects defined. Therefore, the Import... function should be disabled until a project is defined. I haven't looked at it, but I imagine that this might apply to the Export... function as well. From a usability perspective, though, just disabling the function won't help the user to understand that the reason they cannot import is that they haven't created a project to import into.
Changing OS from Mac OS to Mac OS X as per bug 185991
"As per http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform_UI/Bug_Triage_Change_2009"
This bug hasn't had any activity in quite some time. Maybe the problem got resolved, was a duplicate of something else, or became less pressing for some reason - or maybe it's still relevant but just hasn't been looked at yet. If you have further information on the current state of the bug, please add it. The information can be, for example, that the problem still occurs, that you still want the feature, that more information is needed, or that the bug is (for whatever reason) no longer relevant.
