Re: [mylar-dev] Connector Tutorial

["Lubos and Alena Pochman" <pochmans@xxxxxxxxx>]

John,

please. please update and/or improve the integrator guide with your experiences and do not get discouraged! Developing simple example connector is splendid idea. Anything you can do  to improve life for connector developer coming after you would be great help. I was in the same situation you are a few months ago while developing connector for CodeBeamer (
javaforge.com) and I "feel your pain" 8-).

Lubos

On 2/27/07, John Vliet < vliejo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Mik,
Thanks for the feedback. I had planned on submitting it to the wiki at some point, but was concerned that my steps may not be accurate since I am still in the "discovery" phase. If that is OK, I can add what I have and let it be reviewed. I was concerned I might lead any other potential connector implementers astray. Let me know if you would like me to add my content "as-is".

On the subject of the example connector plugin, I hope to work on that as well. I hope I didn't come off to critical in my original post, but as I was trying to figure out what the method calls were supposed to do it seemed that you could have a default behaviour (UI) and model for a repository connector, then you could incrementally extend the default to add any custom features. In fact most of the classes (wizards, pages and editors) I implemented just used the abstract class functionality. It seems this could happen in at least two ways. One is to provide a template or project wizard that filled in the default implementation for you and you modified the project as needed. This would work with Mylar as it exists today. The other approach could implement the default functionality as a plugin that would work with minimal extensions. For example you could extend it, adding only a repository name and icons and it would show up in the repository add list and use the default behaviour (perhaps the non-repository task) for task adding, deleting and manipulation. I like this approach, but it would require a bit of work on the Mylar code base itself.

I don't understand the architecture enough yet to know if any of this makes sense, maybe I'm babbling, but I would like to make the entry point for new repository connectors as low as possible. The eclipse UI and Mylar's UI are the steepest learning curve. I will do what I can to make it easier on the next implementer, but would like some feedback on whether these ideas make sense and are in line with Mylar's goals.

Thanks,
John

On 2/27/07, Mik Kersten < beatmik@xxxxxxx> wrote:

John,

I just took a quick glance at your tutorial and it looks great.  It would be
very helpful if you could incorporate this material into our Integrator
Reference.  I find the screenshots that you added helpful and suggest
including those as well.  Don't worry about making the document too long, we
can make it a separate wiki page if that happens.  But do try to keep the
content concise and fit it into the current section in order to make it easy
to continue to evolve.

Regarding the example plug-ins, we would love to get that as a contribution.
If you are interested please see the following bug:

170894: Create a simple example on how to create a task repository.
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=170894

Mik

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mylar-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mylar-dev-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Eugene Kuleshov
> Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 11:27 PM
> To: Mylar developer discussions
> Subject: Re: [mylar-dev] Connector Tutorial
>
> John Vliet wrote:
> > I have been looking into creating mylar connectors for our project
> > wiki (on jotspot.com < http://jotspot.com>) and for PVCS Tracker.
> While
> > doing so I have found the documentation quite sparse. I looked
> through
> >
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Tasks_fram
> ework
> > and have modeled my connector after the Trac connector as suggested
> by
> > this page.
>   Hmm, there are several sections in that document on that suppose to
> give more or less step by step instructions. You are very welcome to
> extend and clarify this information.
>
>   For example, web connector only implementing first 3 sections from
> this list:
>
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Creating_c
> onnector_projects
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Implementi
> ng_core_extension_points
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Implementi
> ng_UI_extension_points
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Query_supp
> ort
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Task_edito
> r
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Offline_da
> ta_handling
> http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Mylar_Integrator_Reference#Deployment
> _tips
>
> > I have found that you can't really incrementally implement your
> > connector. Once you start adding a new task, the calls Mylar makes to
> > your connector plugin require a pretty complete understanding of
> > repository implementation.
>   Not quite true. You do have to have all the methods, but most of them
> can be just stubs ( i.e. return null or false).
> > With the scant documentation you have to reverse engineer the
> > functionality with the debugger. It seems that it should be possible
> > to have an abstract or basic implementation and model that functions
> > with minimal work, then you evolve the rest of the features.
> >
> > I have started to document my experience
> > ( http://jvliet.blogspot.com/2007/02/creating-mylar-connector-plugin-
> for.html)
> > but this is incomplete and I suspect wrong in a few places.
>   Nice.
> > I want to contribute either documentation on how to create a mylar
> > connector, a template project that makes it easy to start slowly or a
> > combination. How should I go about doing this? Is there better
> > documentation to start with for connectors? Is this the right mailing
> > list to watch (it seems a little light on traffic)?
>   You can contribute to the above sections on Mylar's wiki. I think it
> would make sense to break your document along those sections and add
> pieces into above sections as a practical illustration.
>
>   regards,
>   Eugene
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> mylar-dev mailing list
> mylar-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/mylar-dev

_______________________________________________
mylar-dev mailing list
mylar-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/mylar-dev

_______________________________________________
mylar-dev mailing list
mylar-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/mylar-dev