[
Date Prev][
Date Next][
Thread Prev][
Thread Next][
Date Index][
Thread Index]
[
List Home]
|
Re: [platform-help-dev] embedded help for web applications for InfoCenter Eclipse
|
Hi, Dorian:
Very interesting. It's clearly important for extensions to the help system
to use the standard Eclipse extension mechanism. And segregating the
Eclipse runtime from the web server runtime would remove integration
concerns that no one wants to worry about.
Let me step through it slowly to see if I'm missing something:
The Eclipse help plugin defines a few specific extension points in the
usual way for the Eclipse platform.
To extend Eclipse help with new document processing functionality, a
plugin registers extension code for those extension points in the usual
way.
Eclipse provides an "InfoCenter" dispatcher web application that's
installed on the public web server.
At runtime, the Eclipse dispatcher web application connects to the
running Eclipse platform and routes the request to the Eclipse help
plugin.
The Eclipse help plugin calls out to the extension code in the
documentation processing plugin.
Is that the basic idea? (Or would the document processing plugin register
its requests with the dispatcher, which would then route these requests
directly to the document processing plugin, though still in the Eclipse
platform instance, rather than to the Eclipse help plugin?)
If this account is correct, could one type of extension point register a
new web application with the Eclipse platform's instance of Tomcat? Some
kinds of extensions would be much easier to implement as servlets or JSPs
within a servlet environment. For instance, framework extensions such as
the one we're contemplating would fall into this category. Also, reader
response forms and lookup forms might be easiest to implement with JSPs.
For content formatters and filters, the servlet environment wouldn't be
necessary. For instance, server-side generation of graphics or XSLT
scripts that run on XHTML or XML source merely need to know their targets
and return their content stream.
Finally, is there potential for the dispatch indirection to have an impact
on performance?
Thanks,
Erik Hennum
ehennum@xxxxxxxxxx
Dorian
Birsan/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA To: platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Sent by: cc:
platform-help-dev-admin@ Subject: Re: [platform-help-dev] embedded help for web applications for
eclipse.org InfoCenter Eclipse
09/12/2002 07:07 AM
Please respond to
platform-help-dev
Hi Erik,
Thanks for the proposal! I didn't have a chance to understand all the
details of your proposal, but, on a first read, it looks very interesting.
Many features seem to rely on the ability to extend the current help system
webapp. As it is currently done, this is a bit harder to do following the
eclipse plugin mechanisms. Currently, the infocenter is implemented as a
web app that launches the eclipse platform from a servlet, in the same VM
as the servlet (i.e. the app server VM). With the exception of some
customization settings, it is hard to extend the webapp with a plugin, the
only viable solution is to change the existing jsp's/servlets/etc.
To overcome this limitation, one possible solution is to run eclipse as a
separate process (eg. Window service or Unix daemon, or just a regular user
process), and have a dispatcher type of webapp installed on the web/app
server to delegate all the requests to the help webapp running in the
eclipse instance. The main web/app server would communicate with the local
help server (tomcat) running in that eclipse process. This way, all the
help webapp code would run as plugins, and extending the help application
can be done via plugins.
We prototyped the redirection from an app server to a running eclipse
instance (it was a very easy thing to do), but we are just begining to
think about ways to extend the help webapp via plugins.
Another benefit of running eclipse as a separate process is avoiding all
the installations and runtime issues caused by the XML parsers and URL
Stream Hanlders (eclipse has its own, app server has its own).
The drawback is the need to run/manage another process on the host machine
and security implications of having another port open, but, in theory, this
should not be a major issue when proper firewall rules are in place.
What do you think, would such a solution for infocenter work for you?
-Dorian
|---------+----------------------------------->
| | Erik |
| | Hennum/Oakland/IBM@IBMUS|
| | Sent by: |
| | platform-help-dev-admin@|
| | eclipse.org |
| | |
| | |
| | 09/11/2002 07:11 PM |
| | Please respond to |
| | platform-help-dev |
| | |
|---------+----------------------------------->
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|
|
| To: platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
|
| cc:
|
| Subject: [platform-help-dev] embedded help for web applications
for InfoCenter Eclipse |
|
|
|
|
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
Hi, Eclipse Help Gurus:
We're contemplating embedding help topics within a web application window.
We'd like to pursue a strategy that will not only be valid for Eclipse
2.0.1 but also Eclipse 2.1 and (one hopes) beyond.
For InfoCenter Eclipse 2.0.1, the best approach seems to be to extend the
Eclipse help web application. Here is a more detailed explanation of that
approach:
(See attached file: HelpEmbedded.zip)
Will this strategy work with the design planned for 2.1?
We also have a working prototype that can be installed on Tomcat +
InfoCenter Eclipse 2.0.1, if that would clarify our approach.
Thanks in advance,
Erik Hennum
ehennum@xxxxxxxxxx
#### HelpEmbedded.zip has been removed from this note on September 12 2002
by Dorian Birsan
_______________________________________________
platform-help-dev mailing list
platform-help-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/platform-help-dev
