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 <h1>Eclipse 2.1 High Priority Challenges</h1>
 <p>Last revised October 2, 2002</p>
 <p>The following key challenges confront Eclipse.&nbsp; To focus our efforts these challenges are
 factored into two sets: the highest priority challenges
 that we are addressing now, and other important challenges that we should
 consider AFTER addressing the highest priority challenges.&nbsp; We will
 regularly revise the contents of these lists to reflect current priorities.</p>
 <h2>Highest Priority Challenges (that we are addressing now)</h2>
 <h3>Allow user customizable key bindings</h3>
 <p>Eclipse provides some support for configurable key bindings. The current
 support is limited:</p>
 <ul>
   <li>only the editor key bindings can be customized.</li>
   <li>the key bindings can only be changed by a plug-in contributor but not the
     end user.</li>
   <li>the current support is error prone for clients and puts a lot of burden on
     the editor and view contributors <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=22568">22568</a>.</li>
 </ul>
 <p>In addition to making it possible for the user to edit the environment's key
 bindings, there are additional customization possibilities including visible
 actions and perspective layout.</p>
 <p>Involved components: SWT, Platform UI, Text, JDT UI</p>
 <p>Dynamic team (tasked Sept. 20, 2002): Mike Wilson, Andre Weinand, Kai-Uwe Maetzel,
   Chris McLaren, Steve Northover</p>
 <h3>More flexible project layout</h3>
 <p>In Eclipse the contents of a single project needs to be under a single root.
 There are complaints that this structure is too rigid. We have to understand
 this complaints and investigate into a solution, see <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6664">6664</a>,
 <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6144">6144</a> or the
 newsgroup <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/EGamma/Desktop/Challenges2-1.htm">http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg19749.html</a>.</p>
 <p>It would be desirable to have the output folder used by the Java builder to
 be not under the project <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5043">5043</a>.
 This allows storing the source on a network drive and the generated code on a
 local drive.</p>
 <p>For some projects parts of the source tree should be ignored for building
 purposes.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI, VCM, JDT Core, JDT UI</p>
 <p>Dynamic team (tasked Sept. 19, 2002): DJ Houghton, Philippe Mulet, Jim des
   Rivieres, Chris McLaren, John Arthorne</p>
 <p>Also particpating: Kevin McGuire, Michael Valenta, John Wiegand, Jeff McAffer
 </p>
 <p>Working documents:</p>
 <ol>
   <li><a href="inflexible-projects-problem.html">Problem Definition - Inflexible
     Project Structure</a></li>
   <li><a href="towards-more-flexible-projects.html">Towards More Flexible Project
     Structure</a></li>
   <li><a href="flexible-projects-proposal.html">Flexible Project Structure</a></li>
 </ol>
 <h3>Add Workbench Navigation History</h3>
 <p>When navigating code many editors can get opened. It is easy for the user to
 lose context since there is no easy way to go back to a previous point in the
 navigation path. There should be support for back/forward actions to enable
 users to go back.</p>
 <p>Issue tracking bug: <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5700">5700</a>.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI, Text, JDT UI</p>
 <p>Dynamic team: Eduardo Pereira, Kai-Uwe Maetzel</p>
 <h3><b>Support building projects with circular dependencies</b></h3>
 <p>For 2.0.2 we will provide a fix to improve error reporting when there are circular
 projects. For 2.1 we will revisit this problem <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=10262">10262</a>
 to improve the build behavior.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform Core, JDT Core, Platform UI.</p>
 <p>Dynamic team (tasked Oct. 2, 2002): Philippe Mulet, Jim des Rivieres, John
   Arthorne, Tod Creasey</p>
 <h3>Improve file encoding support</h3>
 <p>Eclipse allows to set the encoding used for reading and writing files for the
 entire workspace. This is perceived as too limiting. The challenge here is to
 describe the problem we want to solve, outline solution, and finally, to implement it.</p>
 <p>Issue tracking bug: <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5399">5399</a>.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI, Platform text, Search,
 Compare, JDT UI, JDT Core.</p>
 <h3>Improve startup time</h3>
 <p>The time to start eclipse based products should be improved. This is
 typically done by delaying the loading of plugins for as long as possible.
 Additional opportunity for deferred activation of plugins should be investigated
 including changing how (and how much) we recover UI state.&nbsp; There are also opportunities for improved tools to assist ISV's in
 optimizing the time it takes for their plugins to load.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI, (All)</p>
 <h2>Other important challenges (that we should consider AFTER addressing the
 highest priority challenges above)</h2>
 <h3>Support multi-jar system libraries</h3>
 <p>Eclipse can already use 1.4 level JREs and JDKs as the product runtime.&nbsp;
 However, some recent JREs have started packaging their class libraries in
 multiple jars (not a single rt.jar).&nbsp; This may require additional support
 in JDT to make this both easy to define, and natural to use.</p>
 <p>Involved components: All (testing JRE 1.4), JDT UI, JDT Core</p>
 <h3>Improve Ant support</h3>
 <p>Add support to navigate from Ant error output to the
 corresponding source.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform&nbsp; UI, Ant Core</p>
 <h3>Add cheat sheets</h3>
 <p>Cheat sheets are an
 idea for providing better user assistance. For example, &quot;creation and
 deployment of a plugin&quot; is a multi-step process that could be made easier
 to follow if there was a guide, similar to a recipe that would track the user's
 progress and provide both descriptive text that explains the steps involved and
 integration with Eclipse to automate the process.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI</p>
 <h3>Add table of contents support to wizards</h3>
 <p>Users may get lost in a complex wizard. For these cases a table of contents
 may help provide the user context as well as assist in navigating.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI</p>
 <h3><strong>Improve update manager</strong></h3>
 <p>Allow newly installed features to make the user aware of the new capabilities
 that were installed as well as allowing the feature to customize the
 environment.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI, Install/Update</p>
 <h3>Support floating toolbars and views</h3>
 <p>There are cases where a floating view is useful - repetitive tasks or
 sequenced instructions: e.g. Cheat sheets, palettes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Some developers want to maximize the edit area to use their entire screen and
 then rely on floating toolbars to provide access to function.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI, SWT</p>
 <h3>&quot;Remote Projects&quot;</h3>
 <p>This item is currently under-specified.&nbsp; We need to determine the correct
 approach for clients to work with remote resources in the 2.1 timeframe.&nbsp;
 Once we have closed on the direction, we can provide a more accurate
 specification of this task.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Unknown</p>

 <h3>Allow editors to open files outside workspace</h3>
 <p>It is a common request to be able to open a file that is not part of the
 workspace with Eclipse.&nbsp; In addition, applications would like to provide OS
 associations into Eclipse so double-clicking on a file on the Windows Explorer
 would open the associated Eclipse editor.&nbsp; We need to define what
 operations and capabilities would be available for&nbsp; these &quot;outside of
 the workspace&quot; files</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI, Text</p>
 <h3>File System Synchronization</h3>
 <p>The handling of out of sync resources is not consistent. We should have a
 common scheme and improved support for handling file system synchronization.</p>
 <h3>Improve serviceability</h3>
 <p> Under some circumstances error messages that are only appropriate to eclipse developers are
 being presented to users. While at other times errors can cause the environment to
 unexpectedly terminate. The task here is to improve our exception handling and to
 come up with an approach that is suitable both for eclipse developers and
 eclipse based products.</p>
 <p>See <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=12224">12224</a>, <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=23369">23369</a>,
 <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=1947">1947</a>, or the
 newsgroup <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg03734.html">http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg03734.html</a></p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform Core, SWT, Platform UI</p>
 <h3>Make Eclipse a platform for developing more than an IDE</h3>
 <p>There are two parts to this task, the first is to split out generally useful
 frameworks like JFace and JFace Text into their own plugin the second is to
 provide a stripped down workbench that can be the foundation for products that
 are not IDE's.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI</p>
 <h3>Table Widget Scalability</h3>
 <p>The existing SWT table widget is not well suited for presenting large data
 models.&nbsp; Investigate if it is possible to achieve sufficient performance
 from the existing widget.&nbsp; If it is not possible to achieve the desired
 level of performance then a custom control should be developed.</p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform UI, SWT</p>
 <h3>Separate User Preferences from Workspace Preferences</h3>
 <p>It should be possible to store user preferences that are not specific to a
 workspace separate from the workspace. </p>
 <p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI</p>

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	<meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document">
	<title>Eclipse Project Development</title>
	<meta name="Author" content="Eclipse Project PMC">
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	<h1>Eclipse 2.1 High Priority Challenges</h1>
	<p>Last revised October 2, 2002</p>
	<p>The following key challenges confront Eclipse.  To focus our efforts these challenges are
	factored into two sets: the highest priority challenges
	that we are addressing now, and other important challenges that we should
	consider AFTER addressing the highest priority challenges.  We will
	regularly revise the contents of these lists to reflect current priorities.</p>
	<h2>Highest Priority Challenges (that we are addressing now)</h2>
	<h3>Allow user customizable key bindings</h3>
	<p>Eclipse provides some support for configurable key bindings. The current
	support is limited:</p>
	<ul>
	<li>only the editor key bindings can be customized.</li>
	<li>the key bindings can only be changed by a plug-in contributor but not the
	end user.</li>
	<li>the current support is error prone for clients and puts a lot of burden on
	the editor and view contributors <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=22568">22568</a>.</li>
	</ul>
	<p>In addition to making it possible for the user to edit the environment's key
	bindings, there are additional customization possibilities including visible
	actions and perspective layout.</p>
	<p>Involved components: SWT, Platform UI, Text, JDT UI</p>
	<p>Dynamic team (tasked Sept. 20, 2002): Mike Wilson, Andre Weinand, Kai-Uwe Maetzel,
	Chris McLaren, Steve Northover</p>
	<h3>More flexible project layout</h3>
	<p>In Eclipse the contents of a single project needs to be under a single root.
	There are complaints that this structure is too rigid. We have to understand
	this complaints and investigate into a solution, see <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6664">6664</a>,
	<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=6144">6144</a> or the
	newsgroup <a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/EGamma/Desktop/Challenges2-1.htm">http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg19749.html</a>.</p>
	<p>It would be desirable to have the output folder used by the Java builder to
	be not under the project <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5043">5043</a>.
	This allows storing the source on a network drive and the generated code on a
	local drive.</p>
	<p>For some projects parts of the source tree should be ignored for building
	purposes.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI, VCM, JDT Core, JDT UI</p>
	<p>Dynamic team (tasked Sept. 19, 2002): DJ Houghton, Philippe Mulet, Jim des
	Rivieres, Chris McLaren, John Arthorne</p>
	<p>Also particpating: Kevin McGuire, Michael Valenta, John Wiegand, Jeff McAffer
	</p>
	<p>Working documents:</p>
	<ol>
	<li><a href="inflexible-projects-problem.html">Problem Definition - Inflexible
	Project Structure</a></li>
	<li><a href="towards-more-flexible-projects.html">Towards More Flexible Project
	Structure</a></li>
	<li><a href="flexible-projects-proposal.html">Flexible Project Structure</a></li>
	</ol>
	<h3>Add Workbench Navigation History</h3>
	<p>When navigating code many editors can get opened. It is easy for the user to
	lose context since there is no easy way to go back to a previous point in the
	navigation path. There should be support for back/forward actions to enable
	users to go back.</p>
	<p>Issue tracking bug: <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5700">5700</a>.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI, Text, JDT UI</p>
	<p>Dynamic team: Eduardo Pereira, Kai-Uwe Maetzel</p>
	<h3><b>Support building projects with circular dependencies</b></h3>
	<p>For 2.0.2 we will provide a fix to improve error reporting when there are circular
	projects. For 2.1 we will revisit this problem <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=10262">10262</a>
	to improve the build behavior.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform Core, JDT Core, Platform UI.</p>
	<p>Dynamic team (tasked Oct. 2, 2002): Philippe Mulet, Jim des Rivieres, John
	Arthorne, Tod Creasey</p>
	<h3>Improve file encoding support</h3>
	<p>Eclipse allows to set the encoding used for reading and writing files for the
	entire workspace. This is perceived as too limiting. The challenge here is to
	describe the problem we want to solve, outline solution, and finally, to implement it.</p>
	<p>Issue tracking bug: <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=5399">5399</a>.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI, Platform text, Search,
	Compare, JDT UI, JDT Core.</p>
	<h3>Improve startup time</h3>
	<p>The time to start eclipse based products should be improved. This is
	typically done by delaying the loading of plugins for as long as possible.
	Additional opportunity for deferred activation of plugins should be investigated
	including changing how (and how much) we recover UI state.  There are also opportunities for improved tools to assist ISV's in
	optimizing the time it takes for their plugins to load.  </p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI, (All)</p>
	<h2>Other important challenges (that we should consider AFTER addressing the
	highest priority challenges above)</h2>
	<h3>Support multi-jar system libraries</h3>
	<p>Eclipse can already use 1.4 level JREs and JDKs as the product runtime.
	However, some recent JREs have started packaging their class libraries in
	multiple jars (not a single rt.jar).  This may require additional support
	in JDT to make this both easy to define, and natural to use.</p>
	<p>Involved components: All (testing JRE 1.4), JDT UI, JDT Core</p>
	<h3>Improve Ant support</h3>
	<p>Add support to navigate from Ant error output to the
	corresponding source.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform  UI, Ant Core</p>
	<h3>Add cheat sheets</h3>
	<p>Cheat sheets are an
	idea for providing better user assistance. For example, "creation and
	deployment of a plugin" is a multi-step process that could be made easier
	to follow if there was a guide, similar to a recipe that would track the user's
	progress and provide both descriptive text that explains the steps involved and
	integration with Eclipse to automate the process.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI</p>
	<h3>Add table of contents support to wizards</h3>
	<p>Users may get lost in a complex wizard. For these cases a table of contents
	may help provide the user context as well as assist in navigating.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI</p>
	<h3><strong>Improve update manager</strong></h3>
	<p>Allow newly installed features to make the user aware of the new capabilities
	that were installed as well as allowing the feature to customize the
	environment.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI, Install/Update</p>
	<h3>Support floating toolbars and views</h3>
	<p>There are cases where a floating view is useful - repetitive tasks or
	sequenced instructions: e.g. Cheat sheets, palettes.  Some developers want to maximize the edit area to use their entire screen and
	then rely on floating toolbars to provide access to function.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI, SWT</p>
	<h3>"Remote Projects"</h3>
	<p>This item is currently under-specified.  We need to determine the correct
	approach for clients to work with remote resources in the 2.1 timeframe.
	Once we have closed on the direction, we can provide a more accurate
	specification of this task.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Unknown</p>

	<h3>Allow editors to open files outside workspace</h3>
	<p>It is a common request to be able to open a file that is not part of the
	workspace with Eclipse.  In addition, applications would like to provide OS
	associations into Eclipse so double-clicking on a file on the Windows Explorer
	would open the associated Eclipse editor.  We need to define what
	operations and capabilities would be available for  these "outside of
	the workspace" files</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI, Text</p>
	<h3>File System Synchronization</h3>
	<p>The handling of out of sync resources is not consistent. We should have a
	common scheme and improved support for handling file system synchronization.</p>
	<h3>Improve serviceability</h3>
	<p> Under some circumstances error messages that are only appropriate to eclipse developers are
	being presented to users. While at other times errors can cause the environment to
	unexpectedly terminate. The task here is to improve our exception handling and to
	come up with an approach that is suitable both for eclipse developers and
	eclipse based products.</p>
	<p>See <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=12224">12224</a>, <a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=23369">23369</a>,
	<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=1947">1947</a>, or the
	newsgroup <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg03734.html">http://dev.eclipse.org/newslists/news.eclipse.tools/msg03734.html</a></p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform Core, SWT, Platform UI</p>
	<h3>Make Eclipse a platform for developing more than an IDE</h3>
	<p>There are two parts to this task, the first is to split out generally useful
	frameworks like JFace and JFace Text into their own plugin the second is to
	provide a stripped down workbench that can be the foundation for products that
	are not IDE's.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI</p>
	<h3>Table Widget Scalability</h3>
	<p>The existing SWT table widget is not well suited for presenting large data
	models.  Investigate if it is possible to achieve sufficient performance
	from the existing widget.  If it is not possible to achieve the desired
	level of performance then a custom control should be developed.</p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform UI, SWT</p>
	<h3>Separate User Preferences from Workspace Preferences</h3>
	<p>It should be possible to store user preferences that are not specific to a
	workspace separate from the workspace. </p>
	<p>Involved components: Platform Core, Platform UI</p>

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