[platform-ant-dev] Evolving Ant/External Tools/Debug Platform

["Darin Wright" <Darin_Wright@xxxxxxx>]

Much new work has appeared in HEAD this week relating to the re-use of the launch infrastructure in external tools.

A new concept has been added to the debug UI to identify groups of related launch configurations. Each group supports a launch history (for example, the run and debug histories), and is viewed in the launch configuration dialog together. A group identifies the launch configurations that belong to it via the combination of launch configuration "category" and "launch mode". Thus, the debug UI itself defines two launch groups - run and debug.

(To see the new work in external tools, you must turn on the "work in progress" preference to "use launch configurations" from the "External Tools -> Work in pogress" preference page).

External tools has defined two new types of launch configurations - "programs" and "ant scripts". Each of these config types has a category of "externalTools". As well, external tools has defined a launch group for its configurations. The external tools menu now looks/behaves similar to the debug/run menus - i.e. there is a drop down history, and an action to open the launch config dialog, called "External Tools...". Tabs have been created (based on Simon's work), that allow programs and ant scripts to be configured.

When using the new "launch config" support, you will see that external tools now use the debug console, and register processes with the debugger. This provides a launch/console history. Currently, the debug console does not support structured output -  however, color coding has been maintained. Simple "hyper links" have also been provided in the console that link ant output back to their associated tasks in their XML files.

Implementation of "external tool builders" that use launch configs is not complete. Users should be aware that the UI currently allows a mixed mode of development. That is, you can use the old and new external tools support side by side (since the external tools view is still present, and project builders are still configured with the old support). This is a temporary problem - when the new support is fully functional, the old support will be removed.

Darin