[wtp-dev] WTP Architecture Group - feedback on proposed expanded downloa

[Nitin Dahyabhai <nitind@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Greetings,

The WTP Architecture Working Group is investigating making parts of WTP 
independently downloadable in much the same way the Eclipse Project makes 
SWT and the Jar Processor from org.eclipse.update.core available 
separately.  When WTP was first divided into components, the Common 
component (incidentally now the Common subproject) was set up to house 
plug-ins that were required by WTP but which didn't themselves depend on 
WTP  The thinking at the time was that these plug-ins could eventually be 
pushed down into the Eclipse Project, but as the releases have gone by 
that looks more and more unlikely.  At the same time, there has been 
interest expressed about some parts of WTP being supplied as separate 
downloads.  Rather than give our release engineering team a large amount 
of work to do that might ultimately prove unneeded, we'd like to propose a 
pilot program of three downloads:

1) Faceted Project Framework - The Faceted Project Framework allows the 
plug-in developer to think of projects as composed of units of 
functionality (facets) which can be added and removed by the user.  It 
contains mechanisms for modeling and resolving constraints between facets 
as well as a generalized UI for end users.  It requires Java5 and Draw2D 
(from GEF).

2) Snippets view - The Snippets view allows dragging and dropping of 
snippets of text into text editors.  Users can create snippets with 
variables to be filled in when dropped into editors while plug-ins are 
free to do almost anything they want when their snippets are dropped--in 
addition to inserting text, importing of examples, creating other 
resources, even launching their own wizards or driving other UI 
interactions.  User created snippets can also be imported and exported to 
be shared by a team.  Requires GEF.

3) JSDT - The JavaScript Development Tools, already available in WTP 3.0 
builds, provides a full JavaScript IDE.  While it also integrates with the 
HTML and JSP editors in WTP, a separate download would contain only the 
JavaScript functionality.

Of course, what we really need is your feedback.  We want to hear if this 
idea and these downloads are of interest to our adopters and our users, 
both from those in favor of them and those not, and those that have other 
ideas for us. Note that the External component Use 
(http://wiki.eclipse.org/WTP_External_Component_Use) page focuses more on 
larger architectural points whereas this is strictly about consumable 
downloads for parts of WTP that are architecturally ready to go.

Join the discussion at 
http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php?title=Talk:WTP_Expanded_Downloads&action=edit 
.

---
Nitin Dahyabhai
Eclipse WTP Source Editing
IBM Rational