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| <title>PDE What's New for 2.1</title> |
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| <h2>What's New in 2.1</h2> |
| |
| <p>Here are some of the more interesting or significant changes made to PDE for |
| the 2.1 release of Eclipse since 2.0:</p> |
| <table border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0" width="600" style="border-collapse: collapse" bordercolor="#111111"> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Improved way to reference |
| dependent plug-ins</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">The new <b>Plug-in Development / |
| Java Build Path Control</b> preference controls whether new plug-in |
| development projects will use a dynamically computed build classpath entry |
| rather than an explicit list of required plug-in JAR libraries (the |
| default). Turning this preference on makes the Java project build classpath much less fragile, and visually groups together libraries for |
| required plug-ins. It also makes the classpath highly dynamic in that it |
| instantly reacts to the changes in the self-hosting style (external plug-ins |
| versus imported binary projects).<p align="center"> |
| <img border="0" src="images/required-plug-in-entries.gif" alt="Project using Required plug-in entries container" width="189" height="159"></p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Exporting deployable plug-ins |
| and features</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">There are new <b>File > Export</b> |
| wizards for exporting plug-in and features. Choose File->Export->Deployable |
| plug-ins and fragments to export selected plug-ins to a ZIP file that can be |
| easily unzipped into any Eclipse-based product. Similarly, choose <b>File > Export |
| > Deployable features</b> to export selected features and their |
| plug-ins.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Importing with linking</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">Importing external plug-ins and |
| fragments can be much faster and would not greatly increase the size of your |
| workspace if you import with linking. This new option can be used by |
| unchecking the 'copy plug-in content into your workspace area' checkbox in |
| the 'Import External Plug-ins and Fragments' wizard. 'Importing with |
| linking' means that the import operation will not copy the resources being |
| imported into your workspace. It will simply create links to the files |
| being imported. You will be able to browse these linked resources, as if |
| they had been copied into your workspace. However, they are physically not |
| there on your file system, so you will not be able to modify them. Beware |
| of operations that depend on files being physically in your workspace, as |
| they will not work on linked resources.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Support for creating update |
| sites</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">PDE now supports building and |
| maintaining Update Manager update sites. Use the new project wizard <b>Plug-in |
| Development > Update Site Project</b> to create a dedicated project |
| with all the relevant files including the site map (site.xml) file. The |
| site map editor creates the required entries in the map and also builds the needed feature and plug-in JARs. Once built, |
| the site is operational directly from the workspace and can be tested |
| using Update Manager (<b>Help > Software Updates > Update Manager</b>). |
| And with Eclipse FTP/WebDAV Support installed, you can upload everything |
| to a remote update server.<p> |
| <img border="0" src="images/site-builder-2.gif" width="463" height="600" alt="update site editor"></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>manifest file validation</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">Manifest (plugin.xml/fragment.xml) |
| files in plug-in projects that have a PDE nature can now be validated to |
| flag semantic errors such as unknown extension points, illegal attributes |
| for extensions, missing required attributes for extensions, etc. The |
| list of possible problems that PDE can detect are found on the <b>Plug-ins</b> |
| tab of the <b>Plug-in Development > Compilers</b> preference page, where the |
| level for each problem can be set to one of 'Ignore', 'Error', or 'Warning'.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Plug-in Search</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">PDE contributes a tab to the |
| Search dialog, where you can search for plug-ins, fragments, extension |
| points and extensions. Scope of search can extend beyond the workspace |
| to external plug-ins and fragments.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Compute Dependency Extent</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">PDE can now easily determine the |
| reason why your plug-in depends on plug-in X. Through the function |
| 'Compute Dependency Extent' found in the context menu of the 'Dependencies' |
| page of the manifest editor, PDE will find and display all the Java types |
| and extension points provided by plug-in X to your plug-in. This is a |
| good tool to determine the extent to which you need this plug-in, and it |
| might help you refactor your plug-ins. Also, it would help you check |
| if you are using any internal (non-API) types of plug-in X, which might be |
| undesirable.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Find Unused Dependencies</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">This function is available through |
| the context menu of the 'Dependencies' page of the manifest editor. It |
| will find all the plug-ins listed as dependencies for your plug-in, but need |
| to be removed because they are unused by your plug-in. The removal of |
| such stale dependencies will help minimize your plug-in's list of |
| dependencies and hence improve performance.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Dependencies View</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">PDE now provides a Dependencies |
| view, which can be invoked by selecting a plugin.xml/fragment.xml file and |
| choosing 'Open dependencies' from the context menu. It will display a |
| tree showing all the plug-ins needed to be activated before you plug-in is |
| activated.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="right"><b>Extending Java Search Scope</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" align="left" valign="top">Java search scope is limited to |
| workspace projects and the external libraries they reference. In order |
| to add arbitrary plug-in libraries to the search scope, go to the Plug-ins |
| view. Select the external projects of choice and choose 'Add to Java |
| Search' from the context menu.</td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
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