Re: [platform-update-dev] Multiple features containing same plugin?

[Mark_Melvin@xxxxxxxx]

Well, I totally agree and that is the
reason we had nested features to begin with.  Updating all kinds of
sub-features is confusing and a pain.  Unfortunately there are a couple
of active bugs against the update mechanism that arise when nested features
are used (see my original post) - which is why we're moving away from it
(at least for now, anyway).  I'd love to be able to look into fixing
some of these bugs and submitting patches - it is just a matter of time
and priority. :o(

Mark.
----------------------------------------------------------

Dejan Glozic <dejan@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: platform-update-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

04/10/2005 02:08 PM

Please respond to
"Eclipse Platform Update component developers list." <platform-update-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To	"Eclipse Platform Update component developers list." <platform-update-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
cc	"Eclipse Platform Update component developers list." <platform-update-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>, platform-update-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject	Re: [platform-update-dev] Multiple features containing same plugin?

Note that we generally don't like this approach because
it is harder to
service. If you are providing an application and your users are viewing
it
as one entity, you should have one root feature for it that you can provide
updates for. Otherwise your users will have to simultaneously select
several feature to pick up a fixpack, for example.

Regards,

Dejan Glozic, Ph.D.
Manager, Eclipse Development 1A
D1/R0Q/8200/MKM
IBM Canada Ltd.
Tel. 905 413-2745  T/L 969-2745
Fax. 905 413-4850



                    
                     
                     
          
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Thanks, Dorian.  I ended up making all of the features top-level as
this is
a safe, albeit verbose solution.  I'll play with the multiple features
including the same plugin and see how it behaves.  I appreciate the
response.

Mark.
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 Dorian Birsan <birsan@xxxxxxxxxx>          
                     
        
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Mark, to get the best answer, just try out what you're proposing and you
will see what the behavior is.
It looks like you have some unnecessary feature pre-reqs. For example,
feature 1 should just require common feature 1, as common feature 1 already
contains common feature 2. Similarly for your other features 2 and 3.

Multiple features can include the same plugin. A plugin will only be
uninstalled if it is not used by any enabled feature. There may be problems
during updating, as it is likely the newest version of a common plugin
will
be available after the update, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem.


-Dorian


                    
                     
                     
          
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I have a quesiton about including the same plugin in more than one feature,
and what is the expected behaviour.

Currently, I have structured some of my features using "nested features"
to:

a) Reduce the number of top-level features visible in the update site
dialog (simplifying the update procedure)
b) Provide some logical structure to my features
c) Feature dependencies to deploy my common plugins seems cleaner than
including the same (common) plugins in multiple features

What I mean by #3 is, say I have 4 "leaf" features - "Feature
1", "Feature
2", "Feature 3" and "Feature 4", which all include
plugins from "Common
Feature 1", and also, "Feature 1" and "Feature 2"
contain some common
plugins included in "Common Feature 2" and "Feature 3"
and "Feature 4"
contain common plugins from "Common Feature 3".  Since "Common
Feature 2"
and "Common Feature 3" contain plugins that are not really functional
without "Common Feature 1", and additionally are useless with
the leaf
features (1, 2, 3, and 4) that require them, but *also* contain distinct
stuff that have install handlers that do unique things preventing them
from
being lumped into "Common Feature 1"...OK this is getting very
confusing.
Let's just day I have the following structure for good reasons:


Common Feature 1
 |
 |
 + -Common Feature 2 (nested in Common Feature 1)
 |   |
 |   +-Plugin C
 |   +-Plugin D
|
 + -Common Feature 3 (nested in Common Feature 1)
 |   |
 |   +-Plugin E
 |   +-Plugin F
|
 +-Plugin A
 +-Plugin B


Feature 1
Requires
    +-Common Feature 1
    +-Common Feature 2

Feature 2
Requires
    +-Common Feature 1
    +-Common Feature 2

Feature 3
Requires
    +-Common Feature 1
    +-Common Feature 3

Feature 4
Requires
    +-Common Feature 1
    +-Common Feature 3

While nested features are a nice solution for our particular situation,
there are a couple of active bugs against them and they cause problems.
In particular, update validation does not traverse nested plugins (
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=88464), so specific
versioning cannot be done on updates, and more limiting is the fact that
our installer fails when run from a UNC path due to nested features and
UNC
paths not working properly (perhaps related to
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=90595)?

So, as I see it I have 2 options:
1.        Make all of my features top-level, and just
live with the mass of
top-level features, relying on the platform update mechanism to guide the
user through installing dependencies properly
2.        Take the common plugins (C, D, E, and F from
above)  and include
them in the leaf plugins, completely removing the nested features.

Option 2 seems cleaner, but I'm not sure if the platform will support this.
For instance, if both "Feature 1" and "Feature 2" include
"Plugin C", what
happens at install/update/uninstall time?  If I have both features
installed, and I then uninstall only one of them, will Plugin C be removed?
Also, what happens if I release an update to PluginC?  Updating Plugin
C
will mean that both Feature 1 and Feature 2 will have an update shown on
the update site, but the update will be a new version of Plugin C in both
cases.  If the user chooses to install the update to both features,
will
the update be installed twice ( I assume that is OK)?  Also, what
if the
user only installed "one" of the updates, so I now have Feature
1 installed
which references v1.0 of PluginC, and Feature 2 installed that references
v1.1 of PluginC?  Will this break my whole platform, because I know
the
plugin registry cannot handle more than one active version of the same
plugin.  Will Feature 1 automatically use the 1.1 version, even though
it
says in the feature.xml that it includes v1.0?

I'm a little confused as to which is the best solution here.  It seems
to
me like I have gotten feature-happy and it is hurting me, but honestly
we
have so many special products which use common components I don't there
is
any other way I can simplify it.

Thanks,
Mark.
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