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PDE UI has a usability problem when it comes to building plug-ins and features. All the scripts can be generated programmatically but running them requires UI- based 'Run Ant' wizard. From the PDE point of view, this wizard is too low- level. A more user-friendly wizard provided by PDE would be better. For this to work, we need to be able to run Ant scripts programmatically - without the mentioned wizard. We need to be able to select tasks and set properties programmatically, as well as get the runnable we can run in our wizard. Therefore, we need a class that can accept a file path (we want to be able to run the build.xml file created outside the workspace), can allow us to select tasks to run and also allows us to set properties. In short we should be able to configure it in the analogous way a user can configure the RunAntWizard. The class would not have a 'run' method - instead, it would have 'getOperation()' that returns IRunnableWithProgress that we can call from our wizard. The class can launch Ant Console (if configured to do so) but must do it ansynchronously because it will be executed on a non-GUI thread.
Take a look at the AntRunner class on ant.core. You can set the build.xml, targets, progress monitor, etc... A lot of the required functionality (embedded in the buildfile) was included for the 2.0 release when we first talked about it (relative to where intermediate files like the compile log should be put, ability to set a different temp folder, etc...). About the console I'm not completely sure but it should only be a matter of using the right class using the parameter -logger=className. This class might already be contributed by external tools. You can talk to Darin Swanson or Jared Burns about it. Probably a better place is the ant-core mailing list.
The implementation of AntLaunchWizard uses ExternalTool support which is all internal. AntRunner is probably used somewhere in the chain, but we would like to leverage as much of the external tool support as possible.
Moving to Platform Ant (Step 1).
Moving to Platform Ant (Step 2/2).
I will take a look at this on Monday while you are all enjoying the turkey.
This should be fixed with the use of launch configs. You can programmatically create and launch configs. Note that the attributes of Ant configs will be evolving until M4. marking as fixed
Verified.
