[platform-ant-dev] Need to run Ant script programmatically

[dejan@xxxxxxxxxx]

(A copy of the feature requiest 24718 posted here to start a discussion):

PDE UI has a usability problem when it comes to building plug-ins and
features.
All the scripts can be generated programmatically but running them requires
UI-
based 'Run Ant' wizard. From the PDE point of view, this wizard is too low-
level. A more user-friendly wizard provided by PDE would be better.

For this to work, we need to be able to run Ant scripts programmatically -
without the mentioned wizard. We need to be able to select tasks and set
properties programmatically, as well as get the runnable we can run in our
wizard.

Therefore, we need a class that can accept a file path (we want
to be able to run the build.xml file created outside the workspace),
can allow us to select tasks to run and also allows us to set properties.
In short we should be able to configure it in the analogous way a user
can configure the RunAntWizard. The class would not have a 'run' method -
instead, it would have 'getOperation()' that returns IRunnableWithProgress
that we can call from our wizard. The class can launch Ant Console
(if configured to do so) but must do it ansynchronously because it will
be executed on a non-GUI thread.

Regards,

Dejan Glozic, Ph.D.
Manager, Eclipse Platform Components
D2/MY7/8200/MKM
IBM Canada Ltd.
Tel. 905 413-2745  T/L 969-2745
Fax. 905 413-4854