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Build ID: M20080911-1700 Steps To Reproduce: 1. Select a project 2. Open the context menu 3. Select "Export..." Welcome to hell ;) More information: As a beginner, my first question is: What the hell is this dialog? I selected a project, why is it offering "Launch Configurations"? Okay, stupid thing. Just export my project. Ah, nice, I have a filter. "project" ... WTF?!?!? What is a "Team Project Set"??? What? "Export a file containing the names and locations of shared ... uh ... what? What's going on here? Why isn't Eclipse allowing me to give my projects to my friends??? ... Let's leave Joe here. When I select a project (any kind of project) for export, Eclipse should offer an "Export project" as the default in the wizard. The next page should then ask me for a file name, whether I want it to include necessary other projects (i.e. projects which are in my build path) and external resources (for example, external JARs which are in the build path or files and directories which are linked in). The default settings should result in an archive file which contains a fully working project that I can directly import without further fuzz and which compiles out of the archive.
For you exporting the project to an archive (or file system) might seem the natural/default thing but for others (e.g. those who have their code in a repository) it might be creating a runnable JAR or just a JAR or.... Anyway, I agree that the Export wizard is a bit overloaded.
One way to reduce the list of items in the wizard is thru activities. If you never ever debug anything/use CVS, you can disable those activities in the preferences. Workbench will filter out those things in Export/Import/New wizards and in the menu/action contributions. Apart from that, how can the Platform decide which one of the wizards will be/will not be used by a user?
I don't object to the number of options; my objection is that there is no obvious entry "Export whole project". The current situation leads to people leaving Eclipse to ZIP up the whole workspace or the project folder with an external tool.
(In reply to comment #3) > I don't object to the number of options; my objection is that there is no > obvious entry "Export whole project". > > The current situation leads to people leaving Eclipse to ZIP up the whole > workspace or the project folder with an external tool. Why do you need an external tool? You can do it right within Eclipse. Right click the Project, Export->Archive File-> Specify destination->Finish. Can it be more simpler?
>The current situation leads to people leaving Eclipse to ZIP up the whole >workspace or the project folder with an external tool. Yeah, sad if they don't know what an Archive is ;-) Something that we could also improve is to the usability of the search field by specifying keywords like it is done in the preference dialog. Currently import/export dialogs only match what's in the dialog and hence most useful options go away if I e.g. type "project".
(In reply to comment #5) > Something that we could also improve is to the usability of the search field by > specifying keywords like it is done in the preference dialog. Currently > import/export dialogs only match what's in the dialog and hence most useful > options go away if I e.g. type "project". Bug #268253
Dani, Would it be a good idea to have a 'primaryWizard' in the export/import wizard extensions? (just like the new wizard) JDT can add a Export Jar and PDE can add Export Plugin etc? Will it simplfy things a bit?
I think in general it's a good idea but it will still not help a beginner to know that 'Archive File' is the way to go when he wants to export his project(s). Maybe it would help to add a new export wizard called 'Projects' which would simply launch the 'Archive File' wizard with the selected projects pre-selected.
There are two ways to improve the situation. One by supporting keywords and other by having primary wizard. These are addressed by Bug# 268253 and Bug# 267845. Nothing more to be done here. If you have any other suggestions that can help the user to avoid confusion, please reopen this bug and add it in the comments
As outlined in my previous comment, keywords will not help to find the simplest export wizard. And it also contains a possible solution.
I just added a comment to bug 267845 which might help with this bug here.
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.
