Re: [mylyn-integrators] Better browser-based task editor

[Mik Kersten <mik@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Very early on in the project we took this path of embedding a web UI.
There was enough cognitive dissonance between the native/IDE UI and the
web UI that we abandoned it and undertook the rather enormous effort of
making Mylyn have a full rich and offline capable UI.

My take on it is that there are scenarios where this can be useful.  For
example, there are parts of Tasktop that mash in things like the Gmail web
UI for replying threads as well as web-based burn down charts from Rally.
So I do see specific use cases for doing this kind of mashup.  But given
how primary a part of the task-focused workflow tasks are, I think that we
can provide a much better experience with an integrated UI.  For example,
I think it's a stretch to get the majority of users to realize that there
is a custom popup menu on some URLs but not others.  Even though I think
it is really neat how you did that and it could have some long-term
applicability for these kinds of hybrid web/desktop applications.  And I
think that it would be fantastic if it made sense for you to contribute
some of that back to the Mylyn frameworks as there has been some need on
that front:

163120: [e3.5] set authentication credentials when opening a task with the
embedded browser
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=163120

For now, I would go with whatever you think is most manageable for you to
support.  I know from our experience at Tasktop how much work it can be to
stay up-to-speed with the changes happening with the task repository that
you are supporting.

Mik

--
Dr. Mik Kersten
Tasktop CEO, Mylyn Lead, http://twitter.com/mik_kersten

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mylyn-integrators-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mylyn-integrators-
> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Stibrany
> Sent: March-29-11 1:42 AM
> To: mylyn-integrators@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [mylyn-integrators] Better browser-based task editor
>
> Bumping this thread. I should have probably choose better time for
posting
> this than just before release and EclipseCon :-)
>
> Thanks,
> -Peter
>
> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Peter Stibrany <peter@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> > Hello Mylyn developers!
> >
> > I have created small prototype to explore possible integration between
> > browser-based task editor and rest of Mylyn/Eclipse. I would like to
> > show it to you (link to video is below), and to get some feedback. I
> > will use my connector for FogBugz as an example here, but idea is not
> > restricted to this system only.
> >
> > For connector that I work on (FogBugz connector), browser-based editor
> > would actually make lot of sense. Current version of connector uses
> > task editor based on mylyn UI. This has several problems. Since
> > FogBugz XML API is not complete, custom task editor can never support
> > all features known from Web UI. Even though task editor is trying hard
> > to duplicate stuff known from Web UI, it is far from perfect. Lot of
> > stuff is missing, some concepts are different in Mylyn than they are
> > in Web UI (i.e. displaying/uploading attachments, html editing, custom
> > fields, ...) Also Web UI progresses very fast, and it's very hard to
> > keep up with it.
> >
> > For these and some other reasons I have decided to give browser-based
> > task editor a try. But instead of using BrowserFormPage from Mylyn, my
> > idea is to integrate browser UI into Eclipse/Mylyn as much as
> > possible. I have developed a prototype to see how it would work in
> > practice, and it seems to me, that it might be the way to go forward.
> >
> > Deep integration is possible thanks to Browser component in SWT, which
> > supports executing additional Javascript code and calling Java code
> > from Javascript. Using some javascript, I can integrate FogBugz Web UI
> > and Eclipse/Mylyn together!
> >
> > I have recorded small demo for you to see what I mean by this
> > integration. You can see how FogBugz Web UI and Eclipse/Mylyn work
> > together:
> >
> > - When case is first opened, user is not authenticated. My javascript
> > code detects this situation, and asks connector for username/password
> > that user already supplied. Then it logs the user in with his
> > credentials.
> > - When user edits case in the web UI, my java code asks Mylyn to
> > refresh associated task.
> > - When user clicks case reference, instead of changing content of
> > current browser window, my code opens new Task editor instead (through
> > Mylyn)
> > - When user right-clicks on the attachment, we show Mylyn attachment
> > menu, with features like "Apply Patch..."
> > - When creating new task from Mylyn, we open FogBugz page for creating
> > new case. After user submits the case, we tell Mylyn to "convert" it's
> > associated local task to real task.
> >
> > See the demonstration here: http://vimeo.com/21166223
> >
> > What are the benefits of such integration?
> >
> > First and foremost, task editing uses UI that people know and use
> > everyday. This is full UI with support for all the bells and whistles
> > that users are used to, not some limited replacement. Our task list is
> > still up-to-date, we can work with contexts (through Task list), we
> > can use nice features related to attachments. With some more hacking,
> > it would be possible to put missing pieces from Mylyn UI into the web
> > page (with javascript again): task category combo, attach context
> > checkbox, ...
> >
> > There are some cons too... e.g. offline mode doesn't work (although I
> > think it would be possible to implement some support with a some from
> > caching proxy) and it works differently than most other connectors.
> >
> > I am interested to hear what you think about this way of implementing
> > connector task editor. My prototype code also uses lot of Mylyn
> > internal API ... would you be interested in exposing required stuff to
> > make integration like this easier, or is this something you don't like
> > in principle?
> >
> > Thank you for your time,
> > -Peter Stibrany
> >
> _______________________________________________
> mylyn-integrators mailing list
> mylyn-integrators@xxxxxxxxxxx
> https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/mylyn-integrators