[platform-ui-dev] Re: Common Navigation Framework

[Michael Elder <mdelder@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Martin,

        I've
posted your note to the dev list where questions like this are normally
resolved. 


> - what do you think? -yes, i know, not a very good
question :-)

Using an instance of a Common Navigator in your tool will
provide you with an immediately extensible viewer that your downstream
clients can tap into. And with the viewerContentBindings, you can pick
up other extensions (like Resource and Java) without any extra code. 

> - Is the common navigation framework available on eclipse platform
3.2M5? is it only on WTP? is it on the 3.2final and so not available yet?

The framework is available in 3.2M5, but the finalization
of API for DND slipped into the first week or so of 3.2M6. I would recommend
a recent 3.2M6 integration build for your experimentation. The version
of the framework in WTP is being removed, so depending on what build of
WTP you pick up, you may find some or none of the WTP Project Explorer.
They will contribute their extensions directly to the Platform Project
Explorer instead. 

> - Does this framework still depend on core.resources or ui.ide stuff?

In Platform, there is one plugin for the core framework:
org.eclipse.ui.navigator. This plugin has no dependencies on IDE plugins,
and is available for RCP applications. The other plugin in platform, org.eclipse.ui.navigator.resources,
contributes the Resource extension (including some extra DND types like
FileTransfer). As such, org.eclipse.ui.navigator.resources does depend
on org.eclipse.core.resources. But you do not need this plugin to pick
up the core framework. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kind Regards,

Michael D. Elder
Rational Studio / Services Tools Development     
IBM RTP Lab 
Ext: (919) 543-8356
T/L:  441-8356
mdelder@xxxxxxxxxx

"Martin Perez" <mpermar@xxxxxxxxx>

03/27/2006 02:33 AM

To	Michael Elder/Cambridge/IBM@IBMUS
cc
Subject	Common Navigation Framework

Hello Michael. 

I'm Martin Perez. I was on the EclipseCon 2006 this year, but I could not
assist to your presentation due to booth requirements. But, just now I
was revising some material and I saw that your presentation should have
been *a must* for me, because I think that I'm facing just some of the
problems you describe in your slides. 

If you have some moment, I would really like to know your opinion about
my problem. 

Currently, I'm developing jLibrary, an open source DMS. The fact is that
jLibrary does not use the navigator view and uses a custom tree viewer
to show information, because as I do not want neither to depend on core.resources/IDE
nor having to handle workspace stuff, my object model is not resource-based.
My problem is that now, I have some important software providers interested
on building on top of jLibrary, but their current plugins are resource-based
so we're facing some problems here. But after seeing your slides, the common
navigation framework really appears to a good intermediate solution. For
me it will be very useful as I could leverage a full-featured navigator,
and for people wishing to built on top of jLibrary would be also very good
as they do not have to adapt to my custom viewer. So, my questions are:

- what do you think? -yes, i know, not a very good question :-)
- Is the common navigation framework available on eclipse platform 3.2M5?
is it only on WTP? is it on the 3.2final and so not available yet?
- Does this framework still depend on core.resources or ui.ide stuff?

Thanks for your time!

Martin