Jacek on things

Google Summer of Code + Eclipse PHP Tools !?

2012-03-05T23:41:00.002-08:00

It's that time of year again when students join open source projects, disrupt the old traditions and bring new ideas into life as part of Google Summer of Code!

Last year I was mentoring a great project led by Karol Gusak, which was crossing the edge of Web and desktop developer tools.
Karol built Eclipse PDT into Orion web tools, bringing core PHP coding support to cloud.

Click to see the video

Do you hate how Eclipse PDT works, absolutely can't stand what great feature it's missing, or wondering why it still doesn't integrate with that other awesome technology in your mind? Start thinking and chime in with your ideas on Eclipse PDT email list, post it on ideas wiki or contact me!

I'd be happy to mentor this year again, and I'm on look out for anything cloud mobile revolutionary lego embedded wordpress css javascript php zendframework symfony automotive node mongo and smart tv too.

No error dialogs in eclipse headless test

2011-12-29T00:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a small funny thing I learned a while ago while running GUI tests of Eclipse application and now stumbled upon it again.
When running Eclipse tests headlessly, certain dialogs don't show up as they would normally (e.g. when writing/recording the test). This is because of flags:


org.eclipse.jface.dialogsErrorDialog.AUTOMATED_MODE = false;
org.eclipse.jface.util.SafeRunnable.setIgnoreErrors(true);

So if you for example have a test scenario that DOES expect an error dialog to show up, make sure you have above flags set correctly, or find out a different assertion than waiting for an error dialog.

Orion PHP Support demo

2011-07-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

If you're following Eclipse planet, you couldn't have missed Karol Gusak's weekly status reports about PHP support that's being built for Orion.

If you still haven't tried PHP in Orion yourself, here's a little demo now on YouTube that nicely shows syntax highlighting, content-assist as well as overall PHP experience in Orion. Click below to check it now.

Making extensible GUI with org.eclipse.ui.menus

2011-07-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

It's actually first time I had to make a custom part of GUI extensible. In an Eclipse forms editor like following, we wanted custom actions to come from various plugins:

Since eclipse APIs provides this sort of extensibility with their org.eclipse.ui.menus extension point, I looked at how to reuse that mechanism. It turns simple. All you need to do is, while creating the editable area, add:


final Composite parent = ... // that's the area we want to make extensible

ContributionManager contributionManager = new ContributionManager() {
  public void update(boolean force) {
    for (IContributionItem item : items) {
      item.fill(parent);
    }
  }
};

IMenuService service = (IMenuService) getSite().getService(IMenuService.class);
contributionManager.add(new GroupMarker("testing"));
service.populateContributionManager(contributionManager, "toolbar:org.zend.editor1?after=testing");
contributionManager.update(false);

Now to contribute something to that area, you need to extend org.eclipse.ui.menus extension point:


<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.menus">
      <menuContribution allPopups="false"
        locationURI="toolbar:org.zend.editor1?after=testing">
   … Your contributions here …
       </menuContribution>
</extension>

So now, if you for example prepared some commands in advance, you can easily link them without any extra coding. Since I wanted some nice looking link, I used control contribution. It let's you create entirely custom widget.

See the end result:

Lessons learned:
1. When specifying locationURI, it's worth choosing 'toolbar', over 'menu' or others because only 'toolbar' locations support custom control contributions.
2. Only supported URI parameters are 'after', 'before' and 'endof'. When using different parameters, I'm not sure how (if at all) it will be handled and where exactly your contribution will be landed.
3. Not quite sure why, but all the existing docs that I have come accross, only say how to use menus extension point in standard places like view menubar, window toolbar, etc. Nothing about re-using whole mechanism..

Extending Eclipse Orion

2011-01-12T01:06:00.001-08:00

Yesterday Eclipse E4 team announced Orion - an experimental Eclipse Web IDE. There's plenty of information about the project on Orion wiki.

Orion is a set of JavaScript and HTTP APIs that simplify common development part of rich applications, like file storage, preferences, authentication, dialogs, selection. Since it's coming from Eclipse, Orion is skewed towards IDE development, so from start it also includes text editor with some decent features, like JavaScript syntax highlighting and JSLint integration.

The project may go towards strengthening it's JS IDE feature set, as well as enhancing it's core side - extensibility, client APIs ...or do it all at once. In any case it's going to be fascinating journey!

So how to extend Orion? One can re-implement existing HTTP API in language other than Java; add more HTTP APIs, e.g. for task management, calendar, etc. Same with JavaScript API - it seems fairly easy to add more. Looking at this from classic Eclipse adopter point of view, I tried to add some GUI contribution that brings new functionality to existing Orion - let's say a PHP editor to complement the JS one. Naturally all without leaving Orion. I took following steps:

1. create new Orion bundle with new editor

2. install on Orion server

3. test and improve the contribution

Creating new bundle for Orion

Orion is technically a simple Equinox http server, so it's pretty straightforward. We need MANIFEST.MF with bundle description, plugin.xml that describes what web content should be published and the content itself.

New bundle structure, looking at it from Orion:

META-INF/MANIFEST.MF

Pretty much ,standard Eclipse plugin manifest.

plugin.xml

This one specifies that our bundle contains some static web content under /web directory and that it should be accessible in the container under /simple alias. Straightforward, thanks to Equinox.

Interestingly, at the moment Orion team decided to put all configuration in one bundle, so e.g. webeditor or webide JS code currently doesn't decide on it's own where will it appear, but instead a separate configuration bundle defines that.

Installing bundle into Orion

To install just created bundle, we need to figure out where is it stored and install it. By default Orion stores files in serverworkspace directory in it's home dir. On Mac this happens to be \Eclipse.app\Contents\MacOS\serverworkspace

In order to install bundle, it's best to use equinox osgi console - available in Orion thanks to the fact that it's equinox application. Orion docs mention something about server console, but I'm not entirely sure if this is the same, or some other console.

So first start Orion with osgi console:

./eclipse -console

and then, install the bundle:

osgi> install file:/Users/jacek/Downloads/eclipse-orion/eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS/serverworkspace/A

Bundle id is 75

osgi> start 75

I used absolute path from Orion workspace, to easily make updates later. Surprisingly my project dir is named "A" instead of it's real name. Another interesting thing is that there's no all the well known .project and .settings files. Web developers are going to like it, and I'm wondering where is this information stored currently.

Test and improve the contribution

So now that our bits are installed, let's see them:

http://localhost:8080/sample/index.html and yes! It works!

Curious mind would be interested what was the source of the index.html, that generated such nice "Hello [object Object]" message. I included some Orion Client API to check if it's available and yes, it is! From now on, further documentation can be found at Orion Client API wiki.

The source is following:

After updating the bundle contents - e.g. to turn this sample to real new PHP editor - there's another command required to make Orion see our changes. From osgi console type:

osgi> update org.eclipse.sample

The only thing that I was not able to figure out is how to actually add a link or other UI contribution to code editor, files navigator, or other existing UIs. At the moment user has to manually enter the URL to see my contribution. I'd be happy to hear how to do this, if you happen to know.

Google App Inventor Eclipse Plugin

2010-07-14T00:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, in case you missed it, here it is - the App Inventor plugin for easily making Android apps straight from your favourite IDE.

Together with git, task management and debugger now you can make not only silly kitty apps, but something bigger too :-)

See it in action: (embedded Youtube video below)

..hm so wouldn't that be easy with web plugins?

Extend Eclipse in JavaScript... or PHP :-)

2010-07-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

The JavaScript unit tests view for Eclipse I blogged last time, wouldn't be anything special, unless you're JavaScript guy. Except the fact that it's implemented in plain HTML+JavaScript for GUI part and business logic.
Ah.. and it uses jQuery too, so I think I can label the view as an example of jQuery plugins for Eclipse :-)

This has several advantages:
- I don't need to know Java to extend Eclipse. This is great for such Eclipse IDE users as JavaScript, or PHP developers.
- many things are easier to calculate in web languages, than Java. E.g. (running JS tests, running a web poll, etc.)
- writing simple UI in HTML is dead easy. and you can use CSS :-)

The main disadvantage is difficult communication with workbench. Java APIs are complicated and hard to map 1:1 in JavaScript, however for start I'm looking at exposing only few most useful features, like selection service.

The inner workings are pretty simple. Some HTML is rendered by browser widget embedded in traditonal Java Eclipse view. Additionally, JSON and Ajax are used to keep HTML view informed what's going on in the Eclipse workbench.

I know that e4 open social is working on something similar, however how do the gadgets communicate with Workbench?

Wish me luck with final efforts on releasing Zend Studio, and you'll see more of this HTML/JS/PHP plugins :-)

JavaScript unit tests in Eclipse

2010-06-26T02:32:00.001-07:00

Anybody knows what's currently the most popular tool for javascript unit testing?

While figuring this out, I made up a simple javascript unit tests integration with Eclipse to easily run precious tests from my favourite environment :-)

Unit tests are simple objects with functions to test and there's a couple of JUnit-style assertions. I wonder if the above view could be integrated with some real JS unit test tool.

GeeCON 2010 - Call for papers

2010-01-17T00:54:00.000-08:00

May will be great month to be in Poznan. We'll be having a biggest Java conference in Poland and eastern Europe. The list of speakers is already getting very interesting. If you will be around, consider visiting us. Below I'll paste the call for papers, specially that there's not much OSGi or Eclipse speakers yet.

There are also cool vids from last year, you might like to see.

GeeCON 2010 - Call for papers
We want you to share your knowledge with others during GeeCON!

We are interested in hosting lectures on subjects associated with Java
and software engineering, such as:

Java EE, OSGi, enterprise architecture patterns and best practices
rich internet applications (Flex, JavaFX) and Java Desktop applications
modern web frameworks (Wicket, Grails, JSF etc.)
domain specific languages
languages on the JVM (Groovy, JRuby, Scala, Clojure ...)
mobile computing (Android, Java ME)
JVM performance tuning
distributed computing
software quality assurance in the Java world (refactoring, automated tests, mutational test verification, static code analysis)
software configuration management (including tools like Maven, Gradle, Ant, Ivy)
agile methodologies
cloud computing

If you:

have experience in an interesting subject or a cutting-edge
technology,
want to share knowledge,
have good presentation skills,

don't hesitate! Prepare a short abstract about the topic you would
like to present during GeeCON and send it to us!

There are only a few rules:

call for papers starts on 2010-01-06 and ends 2010-02-28,
abstract should be about 250 words long and describe what you are
willing to present,
abstract must be accompanied by a short technical and presentational
resume,
lecture will be 50 minutes long and will be given in English
presentation will be prepared using a provided GeeCON template,
use this form to send your submission (don't send it via email)

in case you have any questions, contact us at call-for-
papers@geecon.org.

Feel free to send as many proposals as you see fit. Please, contact us
if you have any questions or doubts regarding your submission.

See you at GeeCON!

Eclipse Ajax tools help is on wiki!

2009-11-04T04:09:00.000-08:00

When Eclipse Ajax Tools Framework (ATF) re-started delivering builds some time ago, we scored some negative feedback that it's hard to find what actually ATF does, and how it should be used.

This information, initially located in ATF help plug-in, was simply too hard to find. Now it's available at wiki and hopefull we'll be able to keep maintaining it both in wiki and eclipse help format.

Check out sexy ATF help :-)

btw. missed the Movember story? Ian explains.

ATF needs a logo!

2009-08-27T03:44:00.000-07:00

If you feel you can fit javascript, XML, asynchroniousness, XMLHttpRequests, dynamics and web 2.0 into small colourful picture, namely an icon or logo - read on!

ATF is looking for really cool logo to show up in such places as Open Web Tools Directory (Thanks to Mike for sharing this link).

How about these proposals?

PDE Plug-in registry to query your Equinox install

2009-08-19T07:33:00.000-07:00

This year's Google Summer of Code is nearing the end so it's high time to see some results. Under PDE umbrella Wojciech Galanciak is working on making PDE Plug-in registry view able to show you contents of your Equinox/Eclipse/any OSGi application (project details here).

It's like OSGi console, except that you can easily browse all extension point details, services details, bundles details, use filtering, easily scroll and so on.

.

Today he posted some demos:
First demo shows how to connect with remote applicaiton (or local in other JVM).
The second one how to use self-hosting mode in plugin registry view.

Check them out and share your thoughts either on pde-dev or directly in bugzilla.

Enjoy!

Ajax-heavy development, Javascript debugging for anyone?

2009-07-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

After busy week at my new job, today I was really happy to post an announcement that Ajax Tools Framework is getting new life. In last days it was updated and reorganized a bit to work with Eclipse Galileo and now is available for install from nightly builds update site.

ATF, was home for JavaScript Developer Tools (JSDT) and couple other features that later found their place in WebTools project. Unfortunately not all cool stuff had this luck.

Probably the best features still there in incubation are Mozilla IDE and Javascript debugging. Mozilla IDE brings lots of tools to x-ray your webpage. Among others, you can live edit page DOM model and see how the page look changes, play with CSS details or monitor HTTP requests. Javascript debugger is, as you guess, the reincarnation of everyone's favourite Debug perspective but for JS language.

Some of those features work well, while other still need some love, so our plan for next weeks is to make Mozilla IDE and Javascript debugging really strong and robust.

Let's try ATF and share your thoughts on mailing list or newsgroup! ... or tweeeter :-D

Stretching target platform

2009-07-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

I'd like to share with you the target platform for my new project:

You see it's not something typical one would have installed in Eclipse - there's a bunch of plug-ins from Mozilla or WTP repositories. Wouldn't it be troublesome for a newcomer willing to contribute? Install this and that from here and there... Oh and yes, then install their dependencies... Nooo!

But now, since Target Platforms can contain any repositories, I just configured all the dependencies there and posted the atf.target file next to the PSF file.
Now setting up the whole environment is as simple as importing two tiny files :-)
Horey! Thank you PDE (btw. what a new tasty home page :-))