| [birt-dev] FW: [eclipse-dev] Plug-in Developer Checklist -- MUST READ |
Below is a checklist that plug-ins must pass to get a clean bill
of health
for the 3.2 release.
I know it's only M5, but with the
simultaneous release of many Eclipse
projects at the end of June along with
their translation,
it's never too early to address these issues.
The
good news is that, as of 3.2M5 (I-20050215-1600 to be exact), PDE
provides
tooling to help you address all these issues in less than
5
seconds.
1. Exported Packages:
- All plug-ins in the SDK must
enumerate all their packages in the
manifest.mf
- API packages and
internal packages must all be listed with the
appropriate visibility manifest
markup.
2. Icon paths for bidirectional languages
- All
paths to icons must be prefixed with $nl$
Refer to Tod's blog entry on the
subject matter:
http://todcreaseyeclipse.blogspot.com/
3.
<localization>.properties files (e.g plugin.properties files)
These
files must only be used to externalize strings
in
plugin.xml/fragment.xml/manifest.mf files.
We have seen an ugly trend
where people use the plugin.properties file to
translate their Java
code.
DO NOT EVER DO THAT !!!
We do not have that problem in the Eclipse
SDK, but have seen it in other
projects.
Also, as our plug-ins
evolved, the plugin.properties files have accumulated
unused keys over the
past few years. These unused keys should be removed.
During our
testing, we have seen instances where a single plugin.properties
file
contains 50-60 unused keys.
Solution:
To help you address all
issues above and more, PDE provides a wizard that
handles many cleanup
tasks
including package management, internationalization, removal of
unused
properties keys, etc.
The wizard can be accessed from the context
menu of plug-in projects via
PDE Tools > Organize
Manifests...
NLS reminder:
A reminder that since 3.2M3, PDE has
provided an Externalize Strings
wizard. It externalizes all workspace
plug-ins en masse. Run it often.
The Externalize Strings wizard can be
accessed via PDE Tools > Externalize
Strings... from the context menu of
plug-in projects.
Thank you.
BTW, please send all fan mail to
Janek (janeklb@xxxxxxxxxx) as he's the man
behind the tooling described
above.
Wassim.
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