Forum OpenACS Q&A: Some notes on using Eclipse

Posted by Joel Aufrecht on 01/17/04 03:58 PM

I am experimenting with Eclipse as an OpenACS development tool, replacing emacs and cvs. So far, I've learned:

To get Eclipse to use an existing openacs file tree checked out from CVS:
1) Install the cvs plugin
2) create a new project via File > New > Project > select Simple / Project > Next. Then uncheck 'use defaut' for the project content and select /var/lib/aolserver/service0.
3) Once you can see your project in the Navigator window, right-click > Team > Share Project .... It says I already have CVS directories, so I click Finish. (It says that because, months ago when I first wasted a Saturday afternoon on Eclipse, I managed to set up a CVS link for openacs.org. YMMV.)

Editing xml files: The XMLbuddy plugin seems to be adequate, though I miss my bastardized nxml/psgml/custom key bindings from emacs. XMLbuddy doesn't handle xi:include well, but neither did emacs.

Editing TCL: There doesn't seem to be a native tcl editor plugin. You can use the text editor, or use emacs as an external editor, or (next experiment) use colorEditor (http://gstaff.org/colorEditor/download.html) which does syntax highlighting correctly for tcl out of the box (but not auto-indenting or bracket matching, afaict).

2: Re: Some notes on using Eclipse (response to 1)

Posted by Jun Yamog on 01/17/04 05:20 PM

I use eclipse but not for openacs. Its really nice. Word of caution though for the CVS integration. Since its relatively very easy to manipulate stuff. Refactor, etc. There was one time I managed to really shift things around, experimenting on a solution. I did not realize it got committed, and it should not have been committed. After that I went back to normal cli CVS, where things are harder but makes you more aware of things.

Also eclipse can use emacs keyboard mapping.

Although I use elipse, emacs is still on side by side with eclipse.

3: Re: Some notes on using Eclipse (response to 2)

Posted by Joel Aufrecht on 01/29/04 02:08 PM

Basic conclusion after running Eclipse for 2-3 days:
It's slow. Just typing in the editor is slow. It's fairly pretty. It makes it easy to see file trees. CVS integration broke after a day. It's so java-oriented that I don't think I really saw its strengths. I was able to configure it to do maybe half of my routine dev/doc tasks (that I do with emacs and cvs in the command line) with a few days work. The ability to save "perspectives" is tempting.

A few more notes on things I succeeded in doing:

Database access:
file:///usr/share/eclipse/plugins/com.quantum.Quantum_2.2.2/doc/connect.html
(currently failing on ident problem)
http://jdbc.postgresql.org/doc.html#install

I was able to set up project-wide build to call svc to restart the website. I also set up an external tool link so that one click while viewing an xml Docbook file regenerates (by calling the Makefile that's already there).

filter out emacs and cvs detritus in navigation:
edit /usr/share/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.ui_2.1.1/plugin.xml
and add
<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.resourceFilters">
<filter pattern=".#*" selected="true"/>
<filter pattern="#*#" selected="true"/>
<filter pattern="*~" selected="true"/>
</extension>

but the 'normal' way to do it would be to create your own plug-in that contains this information:
(16:39:05) jaufrec: how long does it take to learn to do that from scratch if you've been using Eclipse for 2 days?
(16:39:10) jaufrec: and don't know java?
(16:41:21) Sky_: jaufrec: you need to understand how works the plug-in system. In your case there is no code needed

4: Re: Some notes on using Eclipse (response to 3)

Posted by tammy m on 02/24/04 02:18 AM

Joel,

Are you thinking you will be using Eclipse still? Or have you found it to be too slow, clunky, or such? I have been playing with it today and thinking of using it but on startup its quite slow on OS X for me... haven't done much on using it with OACS. In your opinion, is it worthwhile for me to continue in that direction?!

tia:)