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| <title>Component manifest editor</title> | |
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| <h2>Feature manifest editor</h2> | |
| <p>The feature manifest editor uses the same concepts seen in the other PDE editors. It has | |
| four form pages | |
| (Overview, Information, Content and Advanced) and a Source page that shows you raw XML code of the | |
| manifest file.</p> | |
| <p align="center"> | |
| <img border="0" src="images/feature-overview.gif" alt="Feature manifest editor - Overview page" width="545" height="389"></p> | |
| <p align="left">Information that is entered during the feature project setup | |
| can be changed on the Overview page. In addition, you can provide URLs for <b> update | |
| sites</b> and <b> | |
| discovery sites</b> in the property | |
| sheet. The update site URLs are used by the Update Manager when searching for | |
| new updates. The discovery site URLs are used to point users to other interesting | |
| features and/or sites.</p> | |
| <p align="left">You can provide your own banner image that will be used in the | |
| Update Manager when users browse your feature. If you mark the feature as | |
| 'primary', it will be treated as a 'product' feature and will have additional | |
| responsibilities (providing 'About' information, splash screen etc.). Finally, | |
| you can require an exclusive install for your feature if it should be take part | |
| in batch installation (several features at once).</p> | |
| <p align="left">By default, your feature is treated as universally portable. You | |
| can add constraints by providing supported operating/windowing systems, | |
| languages and/or system architectures. This information will be used to ensure | |
| that your feature is not installed or shown in the context that does not match | |
| these constraints.</p> | |
| <p align="left">Features are required to provide description, license and | |
| copyright information. This information can be edited on the Information page. | |
| Each of these three categories can be represented as either text or a URL that | |
| points to a valid HTML page. Although URL can be absolute, HTML pages are | |
| typically provided with the feature and URLs are relative to the project root.</p> | |
| <p align="center"> | |
| <img border="0" src="images/feature-overview-info.gif" alt="Feature manifest editor - Information page" width="545" height="388"></p> | |
| <p align="left">Plug-ins and fragments that are part of your feature are | |
| listed in the Content page. Pressing the <b>Add...</b> button brings up a list of | |
| checkboxes representing all of the valid | |
| plug-ins and fragments in the workspace. If you double-click on a | |
| plug-in or fragment entry, the plug-in or fragment manifest editor will open for | |
| the selected item.</p> | |
| <p align="center"> | |
| <img border="0" src="images/feature-content.gif" alt="Feature manifest editor - Content page" width="545" height="388"></p> | |
| <p align="left">Required plug-ins are plug-ins that are not part of the feature | |
| but must be present in the target platform as a prerequisite for installing the | |
| feature. If any of these plug-ins are missing, the feature will not be installed. | |
| Required plug-ins can be computed based on collective dependency information in | |
| plug-ins and fragments, or added manually using the <b>Add...</b> button. The | |
| requirement can be based solely on plug-in IDs, or further constrained using | |
| expected versions and match rules.</p> | |
| <p align="left">Similar to plug-ins, features can be used as prerequisites. | |
| Similar rules apply. The distinct difference is that feature dependency is | |
| required when <b>patch</b> checkbox needs to be selected. See feature manifest | |
| reference for more details.</p> | |
| <p align="left">In addition to these standard pages, feature manifest can be | |
| used to set more advanced feature manifest data. Larger features may be built by | |
| including other features, thus creating a feature hierarchy. In addition to | |
| plug-ins, opaque data entries can be specified to carry custom feature | |
| information. These entries usually come together with custom install handlers. | |
| Install handlers can be used to perform non-standard install tasks and | |
| manipulate data entries once they are downloaded by the Update Manager. You can | |
| read more about this and other feature issues in Platform Install and Update | |
| guide.</p> | |
| <p align="center"> | |
| <img border="0" src="images/feature-advanced.gif" alt="Feature manifest editor - Advanced page" width="545" height="388"></p> | |
| <p> <br> | |
| <a href="../hglegal2003.htm"> | |
| <img src = "../images/ngibmcpy2003.gif" alt="Copyright IBM Corporation and others 2000, 2003" border="0" width="324" height="14"></a> | |
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