Re: Re: Re:[platform-update-dev] Non plug-in data that is part of a feat

["Foster, Susan B" <susan.b.foster@xxxxxxxxx>]

In response to Dejan, 

"The rational for keeping features small is in their usage - we use
feature
information to present in the UI well before users decide to download.
It
is vital to be able to present feature information quickly without
downloading the entire gcc, for example. Users should be able to browse
without downloading the whole thing.

BTW, you are not copying all the files to the specified place in the
update
site on the server. You need to place an archive there (a JAR is better
than a zip because you can digitally sign the JAR). The location '
com.xyz.update/features/com.xyz.featues_1.1.0/zipFiles' should contain
only
one archive that you create by packaging (JARing or zipping) the data
you
want downloaded. In am not quite clear about two exports you are talking
about."

The two exports were in reference to a situation where you would want to
support both an install from a single deployable ZIP file (the first
option on the "Deployable Features" pop-up that you get when you export
a feature), where you would need to include the non-plugin files in the
feature, AND support the update site, where you would not want to
include the non-plug-in files in the feature, beause, as you say, it
slows down the UI quite a bit.

I am unsure of what you mean when you say that users should be able to
browse without downloading the whole thing.  When I include the zip file
in the update site, the user can't browse to it - all they can see is
the update site and the features.

The files I need to download are going to be tools that our tool will
depend on, they might be tar.gz files, RPMs, ZIP files, possibly
executables, so we need to check and see if they are there, and then
install them if they are not.  

At this point I am trying to write a custom install handler, and I am
desperate for more documentation than what I have found in the on-line
Help (which is the Help > Platform Plug-in Developer Guide > Reference >
Feature Archives and the  Help > Platform Plug-in Developer Guide >
Extension Point Reference > Other > org.eclipse.core.installHandler, and
looking at the DefaultInstallHandler code.  Any help there would be much
appreciated.

Thanks.

Susan
email: susan.b.foster@xxxxxxxxx
phone: 480-552-0927