[Dltk-dev] Why enforcing the id convention for extensions?

[Gabriel Petrovay <gabipetrovay@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

I have run into the following problem. Using the DLTK extension points
for several preference/property pages did not work because the ID's I
gave did not have the format DLTK wanted.

For example:
1. if the "Build Path" property page is needed, the complete DLTK
functionality is not working if you give the property page your own
id. This page ID MUST end with: "BuildpathProperties"
2. if the "Libraries" property page is needed, the complete DLTK
functionality is not working if you give the property page your own
id. This page ID MUST have the following format:
"org.eclipse.dltk.{0}.preferences.UserLibraryPreferencePage" where the
parameter is the language name defined in the IDLTKLanguageToolkit
implementation.
3. moreover the BuildpathContainerWizard searches for a similar ID
through a method in the
IDLTKUILanguageToolkit.getInterpreterContainerId()

The above examples are 3 different implementations for the same thing:
finding the ID of an extension. Are there any plans to unify this
implementation to only one (for example 3) or to define an extension
point/configuration class used by the Language Toolkit classes to ask
for those ID's (in a similar manner with the role of
SourceViewerConfiguration for a ISourceViewer)?

Well, I found my way through these but these conventions can be
frustrating especially when not documented and when you see that you
did everything right and the plugin does not behave properly. Than you
have to go to Ruby or Tcl and debug to see what happens there.


Regards,
Gabriel


-- 
MSc Gabriel Petrovay
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www.28msec.com