[ajdt-dev] AJDT Dev build available: 1.1.6

[Andrew Clement <CLEMAS@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

With the recent interest in getting
the latest AspectJ fixes available in AJDT- and the fact that the future
version of AJDT (Codename: Lancaster) will only probably only run on Eclipse
3.0M6 and beyond, we have decided to build and package a new version of
AJDT for Eclipse users working on any level of Eclipse up to 3.0M4.  We
would like to do more testing and tidying up before promoting this as a
full production capable build - but hopefully some of you will find it
useful.  

AJDT v1.1.6 as it is being called is
*not* from the Lancaster codebase, it is still based on the same technology
as 1.1.4, but it contains many fixes/improvements for both AJDT and AspectJ.

The update site URL is the AJDT dev
update site:  http://download.eclipse.org/technology/ajdt/dev/update

It will work on any version of Eclipse
up to and including 3.0 Milestone 4 - with one restriction (New aspect
wizard, see below)


---
FAQ for AJDT 1.1.6

== Hey, whatever happened to v1.1.5?
After 1.1.4, we did release (although
not publically) a few minor updates in a 1.1.5 dev release.  We've
decided to brand this new version as 1.1.6 - allowing anyone who managed
to obtain 1.1.5 to recognize it as an update on the update site.


== Whats different between v1.1.4 and
v1.1.6?
Loads of fixes across both AJDT and
AspectJ.  There are some features in AJDT that have been in the codebase
for a while but haven't been exposed to end users before:
1) New Aspect wizard - can now create
aspects with the .aj suffix.  The suffix for aspects is configurable
under the AspectJ tab of the AspectJ Project Properties page.  This
wizard unfortunately has an Eclipse 3.0 dependency - which I only just
noticed !  You cannot use the new aspect wizard on a version less
than eclipse 3.0 - if you are on 2.0 or 2.1 you should use the new class
wizard and then modify the class that is created to make it an aspect.

2) Building behaves much better.  There
were numerous bugs in how we handled building of projects.  Although
we don't have fully correct incremental compilation in this version, the
'build on save' option works really nicely - *the build that is triggered
on save will occur using the currently selected .lst file*.  By default
when you save any aspect or class in your AJDT project, we will perform
a build, the structure view will be updated correctly and crosscutting
annotations will immediately appear (if the file you have saved is covered
by your currently active build configuration).  If you want to deactivate
this option, open the Window->Preferences->Workbench page and deselect
'perform build automatically on resource modification'.

3) Integrated examples.  The examples
shipped with AspectJ are now integrated into AJDT, do File->New->Example
and you can install them as projects.

4) Cross references view.  This
is kind of a preview of what will be coming in Lancaster.  The crosscutting
structure that normally populates the outline view is going to be pulled
out into this cross references view.  For a given selected java element
it will show any advice affecting it, or any places it affects.  *In
AJDT 1.1.6 the structure continues to also appear in the outline view,
so you may choose to simply close the cross references view*

== I keep getting some kind of 'type
already defined' error on compilation?
I have seen a few problems with build
configurations that I haven't seen previously - sometimes you will get
a build error that says 'type already defined'.  This is because an
entry in the build configuration file has been duplicated - you won't see
the duplicate in the .lst file if you open it with the normal build configuration
editor, you will need to open the .lst file with the text editor and delete
the offending duplicate.

So, its a bit ragged around the edges,
but hey, its a dev build :)

---
Andy.
AJDT Development