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Re: [platform-help-dev] Plugin documentation idea
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Dave, try sending this to the pde-dev or pde-doc-dev mailing lists.
BTW, I really like the proposal, I think it helps to get this top-down
view, progressively getting more stuff revealed as needed.
-dorian
Dave Orme
<DaveO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent by: cc:
platform-help-dev-admin@e Subject: [platform-help-dev] Plugin documentation idea
clipse.org
03/18/2002 11:14 AM
Please respond to
platform-help-dev
Perhaps I'm way off base here; in that case please point me in the correct
direction and I will gladly repost this message. However, I think I just
thought of a way to present Eclipse plugin development in the documentation
such that it will be much easier to:
1) Come up to speed
2) Figure out how to make a particular addition or modification after one
already has a general idea of how everything fits together
Here it is (If it's already been done, somebody please point me in the
correct direction :) :
Eclipse is basically this big hierarchy (well, a graph really but it's
basically a hierarchy) starting with the engine, continuing with all of the
plugin.xml files through the plugins and the extension points the plugins
provide to other plugins, etc.
The thing I'm finding challenging in working with Eclipse is
1) Understanding the "big picture" of what the important plugins are, how
they are connected (the hierarchy), and how they work together
2) figuring out where to hang my code
What I would like to see is a picture starting at the engine, showing what
plugins plug in, their extension points, and what plugins extend those
plugins, etc. Then I would like to be able to expand detail in any
particular area until I eventually drill down to the source code.
For example, the top level view would probably recursively show what
plugins plug into what extension points all the way out to the leaf
plugins. It could also provide a brief description of the functionality
provided by each plugin and the intended use for each extension point.
This way if I'm looking for a place to hang my new popup menu item (for
example), I am likely to be able to guess pretty accurately simply by
reading the plugin and extension point descriptions.
The next level down could be a detailed view of the plugin itself kind of
like an annotated view of what the plugin.xml editor currently displays.
What I'd like to see different is *documentation* of what each extension
point the plugin provides lets me do. Probably a one or two line
description would suffice although actually using some extension points may
require me to call some API (for example to retrieve what the user just
clicked) in which case it would be helpful if this level allowed "see also"
links.
The next level down would let me browse the actual code for the plugin.
Maybe it would just take me to the Hierarchy view for the plugin's class.
Or perhaps it would take me to the JavaDoc page for the plugin's class.
The ideal would probably be for Eclipse to be able to generate this sort of
documentation automatically from its own plugin registry plus (perhaps)
documentation embedded in plugin.xml files and javadoc docs.
I hope these ideas help!
Best regards,
Dave Orme
Advanced Systems Concepts
