Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Installer Enhancements for 2019-12 / Maki

[Greg Watson <g.watson@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Ed,

I didn’t see that screen at all, but even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have entered anything as it’s not clear that you need to. Just to check, I re-downloaded the installer and tried again. This time I saw a completely different screen that asks for my Eclipse git/gerrit user ID and doesn’t let me proceed until I’ve entered one. That is a lot cleaner than the variables screen, since it’s not possible to proceed until you’ve entered a sensible value. Something seems to have changed since yesterday however.

Thanks,

Greg

On Dec 11, 2019, at 1:21 AM, Ed Merks <ed.merks@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Greg,

Thanks for trying it!  You didn't feel compelled to change any of the values, not even the "anonymous" ones?  :-P

For a new installer user, the installer looks like this after applying the configuration:

<jhnficfajfeleplc.png>

The last variable must be your user ID, i.e., the one for which you have ssh keys registered. 

Note that if you're not a new installer user, most of these variables will have been saved and are not displayed unless you check mark the "Show all variables" checkbox.  Likely you will need to check mark that to change your previous "anonymous" choice to your actual user ID.  You can even do this in your existing installation where cloning failed via Help -> Perform Setup Tasks, hitting the back button, checking the Show all variables, and changing the value.

In a typical setup, an anonymous read-only https URI is used for the clone, in which case no ID is prompted.  This is good for new users who will only need read access.  But I specialized the simrel setup to default to ssh because this setup is generally only useful for committers who will of course need read/write access and likely have ssh configured long ago; they need only enter their correct ID.

To ensure that committers actually enter their ID, I've changed the setup so it comes up like this,  i.e., so even if you are compelled to quickly hit next without reviewing any of the choices presented to you, you can't hit next until you enter an ID:

<femkjfdcknliellj.png>

As an example, I change the variables to the following to also enable the read/write access to Mylyn's Bugzilla/Gerrit integration:

<benanmemdlfacobi.png>

And I use the Authenticate button to ensure that I've entered the right password.

I've also updated the configuration's documentation so it includes details about this including a link to https://wiki.eclipse.org/Gerrit#SSH_Keys

The default Git repository URI uses ssh so you must specify your user ID for which you've registered your SSH keys to use this choice. To exploit the Mylyn Bugzilla integration, you should enter the email address of your Eclipse account and enter your password for that account. You can use the Authenticate... button to ensure you've entered it correctly.

The unfortunate exceptions you see are detailed in this Bugzilla:

  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=548640

It's assigned to the platform, but no fix has been committed.  As I detailed in this comment, it looks to me like a Mylyn problem and that the subsequent platform exceptions are the result of the initial Mylyn exception:

  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=548640#c10

I think the platform is only focused on avoid their exception, but not the underlying Mylyn problem.  In any case, there has been no response to my comment.  In any case, his problem has been happening for quite a long time, but only appears to happen in a brand new workspace.  For a subsequent restart, the Mylyn task view initializes properly.

Finally, notice how easy it is to attribute all problems to the thing you started with.  Users think the installer (or p2) is stupid because it prompts for multiple copies of the same license, but the licenses come from the things being installed.   Even with these exceptions in the Mylyn and the workbench, the initial assumption is likely that it's the installers fault, but of course the installer also doesn't create the bundles.

This is why I'm concerned about all the general issues because users will blame everything on Eclipse.  Even when they get the content from a marketplace listing and that listing is broken, it will be perceived as Eclipse's fault, and if the install successfully fetches the bundles from some non-Eclipse site and those bundles interact poorly with high-quality Eclipse-hosted bundles, it will still be Eclipse's fault. 

Regards,
Ed

On 10.12.2019 19:17, Greg Watson wrote:

I tried installing the Simrel IDE (on macOS). When I run it, I get four errors from org.eclipse.e4.ui.workbench, including two ConcurrentModificationExceptions from SWT and a NullPointerException from mylyn, a warning from oomph.setup.core "org.eclipse.jgit.api.errors.TransportException: ssh://anonymous@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:29418/simrel/org.eclipse.simrel.build: No more authentication methods available” a conflicting keybinding warning, and two warnings from org.eclipse.emf.ecore about conflicting registrations.

Greg

On Dec 10, 2019, at 6:12 AM, Ed Merks <ed.merks@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi,

On a more positive note, for the 2019-12 release, the installer exploits the platform's cool "link handler" support that was implemented by Matthias Becker; thanks Lars Vogel for drawing my attention to this gem.

As an example, this means that clicking the following link can automatically launch the installer, in this case, initializing it in order to provision a specialized IDE for contributing to SimRel.

  eclipse+installer:https://git.eclipse.org/c/oomph/org.eclipse.oomph.git/plain/setups/interim/SimultaneousReleaseTrainConfiguration.setup

It's kind of a chicken-and-egg problem that you must first download and register the installer once.  To make this step more  self-documenting, I've created a "help" page that describes how to exploit this feature:

  https://www.eclipse.org/setups/installer/?url="">

This page uses the documentation extracted from the configuration (specified in the query parameter) so that it's contextually tailored, including all its links.

I've updated the simrel wiki to describe this automated approach to set up an environment for contributing to simrel:

  https://wiki.eclipse.org/Simrel/Contributing_to_Simrel_Aggregation_Build#Get_the_simrel.build_project

So there isn't really a good excuse not to use the aggregation editor.  Admitted I too typically just edit my *.aggrcon files actually, but mostly because saving creates such a big delta.  But the editor does have advantages, i.e., I can see if I pasted the URL incorrectly and that the  IUs resolve correctly.   More importantly, as I mentioned previously, if you're adding a feature that needs to be in a category or removing a feature when it or any other feature after it are in a category, you will break the model if you do this textually.  And there were many such broken links as a result...

This same mechanism can be used to provision a development environment with the source for the full Platform SDK:

 https://www.eclipse.org/setups/installer/?url="">

You can do this for your own projects too.  One-click contributions from your community are at you finger tips.

In addition, this same mechanism can also be used to install marketplace listings, e.g.,

  https://www.eclipse.org/setups/installer/?url="">

So the installer now allows users to create an installation that includes one more additional marketplace listings as well.

To help make the marketplace listings great again, the listings are now tested daily.  Bad listings give a bad impression of Eclipse, especially when we provide them ourselves.

Currently there are 1316 marketplace listings that specify update sites.  Of those, 541 have problems; some have minor problems, e.g.,  it can't be installed in the versions of Eclipse with which it's specified to be compatible, but many have major problems, i.e., the p2 site doesn't exist or doesn't contain the bundles/features that are required by the listing. The user perception is that anything they get from marketplace is "Eclipse" and any problem with those are "Eclipse" problems...

If you maintain a listing, you can review the test results for your listing as follows:

  https://www.eclipse.org/setups/marketplace/?url="">

For the above listing, we can see that it doesn't actually install in versions of Eclipse older than Photon (and we can see why by clicking on the error icons) so it would be best to improve this listing to exclude those versions.

Thanks to the Foundation's awesome web designers, a link to these listing-specific test results is available via the circled link on your listing's site:

<makjmoeijodceafi.png>

So if you maintain a marketplace listing, please help make it great too!!

If you have comments, suggestions, or concerns about the marketplace listing reporting, please do so in:

  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=550713

If you have comments, suggestions, or concerns about the installer's web link support, please do so in:

  https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=551315

Regards,
Ed

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