Re: [platform-ant-dev] How to use Ant functionality in recent builds?

[Jared Burns <jared-eclipse@xxxxxxxxx>]

We're way ahead of you. :-)

This week's integration build is the first to include the total conversion of 
the external tools plugin to the launch configuration framework.

As of this build, you'll be able to define any number of launch configurations 
for your ant scripts. They'll appear in the external tools pulldown just like 
other launch configs show up in the debug and run pulldowns today.

The ellipses have been removed from the "Run Ant" action. For now, this action 
tries to find a launch configuration on the selected file. If one exists, it 
runs it. If a config doesn't exist, one is created with the default values 
and the launch config dialog is opened on it. If you have multiple configs on 
a file, you'll be asked which one you want to run. I'm not entirely satisfied 
with this story, but I think it will improve once we add the "Prompt me for 
targets every time" option to ant launch configs. I'm particularly interested 
in suggestions in this area.

This week I've been rewriting the Ant View from scratch. As I just announced 
on the list, the new view will appear in tonight's nightly build. It isn't 
polished yet, but it has all of the base functionality we've discussed so 
far, including the ability to manually add and remove build files from the 
view.

Based on your feedback, it sounds like you'll be happy with where we're going 
with the external tools UI. If there's still something missing, let us know.

Thanks,
- Jared

On Tuesday 26 November 2002 05:30 pm, Andre Weinand wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have problems with the new AntView functionality in recent builds.
> 
> Here is my use case:
> I'm helping to port Eclipse to Mac OS X, and I'm working on several 
> other plugins.
> Since I try to be self hosted on any new development quite 
> frequently, I have to export various plugins or dlls. For this I'm 
> running a small number of targets (about 2) in a small number of 
> Ant-scripts (3-4).
> 
> Before the Ant overhaul I could just select the Ant-script and choose 
> the right target from the dialog and press OK. This was not perfect, 
> because I always got the dialog, but dismissing it was not a big deal.
> 
> This seems to have changed in recent builds dramatically:
> 
> - there is still a "Run Ant.." action in the context menu but I don't 
> get the dialog to pick a target (so the ellipses seems to be wrong).
> 
> - there is an AntView which shows me some of my Ant files (only the 
> ones that match a name configured on a preference page), however I'm 
> not really interested in all the targets and Ant files that I never 
> use. But I want to see some Ant files with different names without 
> having to go to the preference page.
> In addition, running a target does not automatically switch to the 
> console, so I don't get any feedback what is happening.
> 
> - I tried to use the "External Tools..." toolbar action. However, I 
> could not configure it to get different configurations for different 
> targets in the same Ant-script.
> 
> 
> So what I would like to be able to do is:
> - configure a few 'Ant configurations' for different targets in the 
> same or different Ant-file which I can access easily from the 'Run 
> External Tools' toolbar drop down menu.
> - I'm not interested in browsing Ant-files after the initial setup, 
> so I don't need the AntView.
> - an alternative would be to have a dynamic context menu entry that 
> lists the available targets.
> 
> Is any of this possible?
> 
> Thanks for any help,
> --andre
> 
> _______________________________________________
> platform-ant-dev mailing list
> platform-ant-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> http://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-ant-dev
>