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Want a way to define an external tool and provide an icon and have that show up on the toolbar without having to write a lot of java code. Enterprise customers have existing tools (or tools that set up different environments) and want to have these show as icons on the toolbar. This function was available in other products. It also will eliminate the complaint about having too many mouse clicks to launch an external tool. Would be nice if in the external tools dialog I could specify toolbar and provide an icon.
The launch history isn't sufficient (if you could pre-populate a workspace with the tool)?
Nothing planned for 3.1. The requirements for this feature request need to be refined. Currently, action sets can be contributed to the workbench (buttons on the tool bar), and an action delegate could launch a config. However, we'd need more support for the workbench to allow for a config to have an optional button on the toolbar (currently, there is no way to programmatically add an action to the toolbar, just contribute via XML).
Doug, is there any way to programmatically add an action to a page's toolbar?
What kind of page? A page in a page book view? Or a workbench page? Could you be more descriptive (possibly with code fragments) of what you would like to do?
This feature request requires the ability to programatically add an action to a workbench page or workbench window toolbar (not sure what the correct term is). Pete, would the action be tied to a specific perspective (or perspectives)?
It does not really matter to the customers. The external tool could be tied to a perspective(s) or simply be global.
Not planned for 3.1
*** Bug 105653 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I could use this feature too. See also bug 29580 and bug 115673. Basically I'm looking for different ways to reduce the repetitive motion currently needed to launch things, especially external commands. It's a pain, literally, when having to alternate between two or three common launches all during the day. This isn't Ant specific so it should probably go in the Platform/Debug box. CC'ing Darin W.
Yes, this is a launch framework issue. Moving to debug.
Doug, is there any API that would allow debug to contribute actions to a toolbar or menu programatically (sorry, I can't recall the last time I asked)?
Reading this bug, I believe you want something: (a) that appears in the top-level tool bar (b) whose text/icon/visibility will vary The only way I can think of is to define an action set. The variation of the text, icon and visibility will need to be controlled by the delegate. Since it is likely that this will need to be done on start-up, you would have to (*shudder*) use the org.eclipse.ui.startup extension point. This is a less than ideal solution.
Launch commands get added dynamically to the drop-down menu for the Debug, Run, External, and Profile toolbar menus, and also to the Run > Run History, Run > Debug History, and Run > External Tools menus (hmm, why doesn't that one say history). Can they be added to the toolbar in a similar way, or do the menus not get generated until you click on them?
Doug, users want a way to add launch shortcuts to the toolbar dynamically. I.e. they want to go to the common tab of a launch config, or the "manage favorites" dialog, and add selected configs to the toolbar. Does an action set provide a dynamic number of actions? I looks static to me (i.e. I have to define an action set with all of its actions up front)?
I guess my thought was that you could define a block of N generic actions, whose visibility, label, icon, etc. would all be under control of the delegate. It's not a great suggestion.
Doug, would it be possible for us to create a floating "Launch CoolBar" that the debug plug-in manages with a dynamic set of actions? I'm not sure what the rules/styles are governing the creation of toolbars.
I'm not sure what you mean by "floating".
I mean un-docked. However, perhaps that is not important to this problem. Can we create our own coolbar associated with a workbench window?
You are capable of doing anything you want, but it's just how much support the workbench is going to give. In this case, I think you'll find there isn't much support. There might be more support for this in Eclipse 3.2.
Is there any progress regarding this bug? This is a feature that I am interested in as well. From reading the bug, it seems the biggest concern is the fact that the variations of the Toolbar (text, icons, etc.) will need to be controlled by the delegate, which will have to be loaded upon startup in order to properly display the Toolbar items. However, Ed mentions that these launch configurations are already dynamically added to the External Tools drop down menu, via the history. They can also be added dynamically to the menu by selecting the "Display in Favourites Menu" option, which is found on the Common tab of each launch configuration. Is there a way to leverage this existing framework, and perhaps use it to dynamically populate the Toolbar as well?(Basically I'm just raising Ed's question again). If this feature is implemented, I think it would also be worthwhile to give users the ability to provide their own custom icons for their toolbar buttons. Being able to differentiate between program launch configurations at a glance, is much more preferable than depending on the hover text.
It looks like we could provide a limited number of "config actions" on the toolbar. However, when pressed, how would we know what mode to launch in? i.e. run vs. debug?
It looks like you might be able ask the LaunchConfigurationManager for the LaunchHistory, and from there determine what LaunchGroup your specific configuration belongs to, and retrieve launch mode from there. At least, that seems to be the way that the Organize Favourites action does it. However, this bug was originally opened for the purpose of providing External Tool actions on the Toolbar. If that is all we plan to support, then the launch mode will not be a big issue, since all the actions will have to be launched in run mode. However, if you plan to add other types of launch actions as well, then I agree it's a valid issue. There seems to be alot of discussion, and interest around this feature. Will this be a planned item for 3.2?
Even if the custom toolbar enhancement does not make it into 3.2, I think the ability to define your own icons for External Tool actions would be a useful feature to implement. The change is relatively small, and it would be essential if custom actions are allowed on the toolbar in the near future. I've already taken a look at this, and can provide an implementation of it in a patch. This is a feature that I would like to see go out with 3.2.
I agree with Tim. At the very least, if Eclipse provides the ability to attach an icon to each external tools definition (this is all internal code), plugin providers can add some of the definitions (for e.g. only the "Favourites") to the tool bar if they wanted to. The attached icons can then be used to display the tool bar buttons. It will be great if we can get this initial implementation in 3.2. We can wait for the full fledged implementation in a later version if all the issues raised cannot be addressed quite yet.
Due to time/resources limitations this will not be committed for 3.2. I would encourage those wanting the support to experiment with building the toolbar support in their own plug-in, using internal APIs from debug as required. The intent of this would be to flesh out the function/issues and then eventually push the support down to the platform.
open to mark as dup.
Dup *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 51003 ***
