[ews.eclipse.technology.desk] Re: Some ideas...

["news.eclipse.org" <Joel.Kamentz@xxxxxxx>]

One thing I miss from the C++ world is support for windows file change 
notification and perhaps some of the efficiency / functionality of find file 
apis vs. how things are now done in Java.  It should be possible to get all 
available meta info about a file or other entity using just _one_ api call 
(and crossing of the java / native boundary), rather than having to make 
separate calls to determine length, modification date, read-only status, 
etc.

I don't know if full exposure of file system functionality would be 
worthwhile or not.  (Any way to do it without being to specific to O/S?) 
Windows supports multiple streams of data per file, though I don't know how 
much it's used.  Would this compare to the old mac notion of data and 
resource forks?  If so, perhaps a general exposure of multiple streams per 
"file" would be nice.

Other ideas might be defrag stuff, good services/scheduling support.

Joel

"Robert Enyedi" <renyedi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message 
news:d0onpi$jfu$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Hi,
>
> Just like the founders of this project, I know that Java is lacking a lot 
> of desktop integration features. For a while I've been developing an 
> open-source file manager in Java and these are the main areas where I have 
> to use native bindings:
>
> - partition information - there's no way of obtaining basic partition 
> information in Java: type, size, free space. The Eclipse Update Manager 
> codebase contains such code 
> (http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.update.core.win32/src/) 
> and I use something similar to it. It's not that hard, but it's still 
> native code and should be available as an API. For example, any 
> container/application server needs such an API for doing a safe deploy.
>
> - file permissions/attributes - all you can do in Java is set a file's 
> read-only attribute. There's no way of resetting it. And you can check if 
> it's hidden, but no API for changes is provided. There should be a 
> specialized API for dealing with a unified file permission model that 
> covers mainly the permission models of win32 and Unix.
>
> - shell context menu - while the first two areas are of general interest, 
> the handling of the system shell's context menu is somewhat of limited 
> use. I need it in my file manager 
> (http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=35271&ssid=8601) 
> and I also have some code already implemented (only for win32 and it works 
> just partially): 
> http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/jcommander/plugins/org.jcommander.systemshell.win32/src/. 
> However, an API for the system shell and the contextual menu in particular 
> might be useful also for other kind of applications that require tight 
> desktop integration.
>
> While trying to address these needs for my application, I directly 
> experienced the two obvious difficulties in developing native bindings:
> - design of a unified and platform independent API - requires knowledge of 
> all the major platforms
> - implementation of the APIs for each target platform - thorough knowledge 
> of the specific APIs is needed and this is the hardest part
>
> What I've found out as missing in Java for desktop integration is just a 
> small part of what other requirements might be.
>
> Do you have a plan about the areas of desktop integration that the Eclipse 
> Desktop project intends to address?
>
> Regards,
> Robert