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| <h1>Eclipse Project<br> |
| DRAFT 3.0 Plan</h1> |
| <p>Last revised Friday, January 30, 2004 (<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> |
| marks interesting changes since the <a href="eclipse_project_plan_3_0_20031027.html">previous |
| draft of October 27, 2003</a>)<br> |
| <br> |
| <i> Please send comments about this draft plan to the </i><a href="mailto:eclipse-dev@eclipse.org">eclipse-dev@eclipse.org</a> |
| <i>developer mailing list.</i></p> |
| <p>This document lays out the feature and API set for the next feature release |
| of Eclipse after 2.1, designated release 3.0 (<a href="why_eclipse_3_0.html">Why |
| Eclipse "3.0"?</a>). |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#Deliverables">Release deliverables</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#Milestones">Release milestones</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#TargetOperatingEnvironments">Target operating environments</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#Compatibility">Compatibility with previous releases</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#Platform">Eclipse Platform subproject</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#JDT">Java development tools (JDT) subproject</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#PDE">Plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Plans do not materialize out of nowhere, nor are they entirely static. To |
| ensure the planning process is transparent and open to the entire Eclipse |
| community, we (the Eclipse PMC) post plans in an embryonic form and revise them |
| throughout the release cycle. |
| <p>The first part of the plan deals with the important matters of release |
| deliverables, release milestones, target operating environments, and |
| release-to-release compatibility. These are all things that need to be clear for |
| any release, even if no features were to change. |
| <p>The remainder of the plan consists of plan items for the various Eclipse |
| subprojects. Each plan item covers a feature or API that is to be added to |
| Eclipse, or some aspect of Eclipse that is to be improved. Each plan item has |
| its own entry in the Eclipse bugzilla database, with a title and a concise |
| summary (usually a single paragraph) that explains the work item at a suitably |
| high enough level so that everyone can readily understand what the work item is |
| without having to understand the nitty-gritty detail. |
| <p>Not all plan items represent the same amount of work; some may be quite |
| large, others, quite small. Some plan items may involve work that is localized |
| to a single Platform component; others may involve coordinated changes to |
| several components; other may pervade the entire Platform. Although some plan |
| items are for work that is more pressing that others, the plan items appear in |
| no particular order. |
| <p>With the previous release as the starting point, this is the plan for how we |
| will enhance and improve it. Fixing bugs, improving test coverage, |
| documentation, examples, performance, usability, etc. are considered routine |
| ongoing maintenance activities and are not included in this plan unless they |
| would also involve a significant change to the API or feature set, or involve a |
| significant amount of work. All interesting feature work is accounted for in |
| this plan. |
| <p>The current status of each plan item is noted: |
| <ul> |
| <li><b>Committed</b> plan item - A committed plan item is one that we have decided |
| to address for the release.</li> |
| <li><b>Proposed</b> plan item - A proposed plan item is one that we are |
| considering addressing for the release. Although we are actively |
| investigating it, we are not yet in a position to commit to it, or to say |
| that we won't be able to address it. After due consideration, a proposal |
| will either be committed, deferred, or rejected.</li> |
| <li><b>Deferred</b> plan item - A reasonable proposal that will not make it in |
| to this release for some reason is marked as deferred with a brief note as |
| to why it was deferred. Deferred plan items may resurface as committed plan |
| items at a later point.</li> |
| <li><b>Rejected</b> plan item - Plan items that were proposed but judged |
| unworkable are marked as rejected plan items, with an accompanying summary |
| of why they were dismissed. Keeping track of rejected items avoids repeating |
| the discussion.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h2><a name="Deliverables"></a>Release deliverables</h2> |
| <p>The release deliverables have the same form as previous releases, namely: |
| <ul> |
| <li>Source code release for Eclipse Project, available as versions tagged |
| "R3_0" in the Eclipse Project <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/">CVS |
| repository</a>.</li> |
| <li>Eclipse Project SDK (includes Platform, JDT, and PDE source zips) |
| (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>Eclipse Platform runtime binary distribution (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>JDT runtime binary distribution (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>Eclipse SDK Examples (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>SWT distribution (downloadable).</li> |
| </ul> |
| <h2><a name="Milestones"></a>Release milestones</h2> |
| <p>Release milestone occurring at roughly 6 week intervals exist to facilitate |
| coarse-grained planning and staging. The milestones are:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Friday June 6, 2003 - Milestone 1 (3.0 M1) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>Friday July 18, 2003 - Milestone 2 (3.0 M2) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>Friday August 29, 2003 - Milestone 3 (3.0 M3) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>Friday October 10, 2003 - Milestone 4 (3.0 M4) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>Friday November 21, 2003 - Milestone 5 (3.0 M5) - initial API freeze for |
| breaking changes - stable build reflecting progress</li> |
| <li>Friday December 19, 2003 - Milestone 6 (3.0 M6) - API freeze for breaking |
| changes - stable build with focus on reducing the bug backlog and fixing |
| memory leaks</li> |
| <li>Friday February 13, 2004 - Milestone 7 (3.0 M7) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>Friday March 26, 2004 - Milestone 8 (3.0 M8) - stable build reflecting |
| progress</li> |
| <li>Friday May 7, 2004 - Milestone 9 (3.0 M9) - stable build - feature |
| complete - development freeze - lock down and testing begins</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>The 3.0 release is targeted for June 2004. All release deliverables will be |
| available for download as soon as the release has been tested and validated in |
| the target operating configurations listed below.</p> |
| <h2><a name="TargetOperatingEnvironments"></a>Target Operating Environments</h2> |
| <p>In order to remain current, each Eclipse release targets reasonably current |
| versions of the underlying operating environments.</p> |
| <p>Most of the Eclipse SDK is "pure" Java code and has no direct |
| dependence on the underlying operating system. The chief dependence is therefore |
| on the Java 2 Platform itself. The 3.0 release of the Eclipse Project is written |
| and compiled against version 1.4 of the Java 2 Platform APIs, and targeted to |
| run on version 1.4 of the Java 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition.</p> |
| <p>There are many different implementations of the Java 2 Platform running atop |
| a variety of operating systems. We focus Eclipse testing on a handful of popular |
| <span class="header">combinations of operating system and Java 2 Platform; these |
| are our <em>reference platforms</em>. Eclipse undoubtedly runs fine in many |
| operating environments beyond the reference platforms we test. However, since we |
| do not systematically test them we cannot vouch for them. Problems encountered |
| when running Eclipse on non-reference platform that cannot be recreated on any |
| reference platform will be given lower priority than problems with running |
| Eclipse on a reference platform.</span></p> |
| <p>Eclipse SDK 3.0 is tested and validated on the following reference platforms |
| (this list is updated over the course of the release cycle):</p> |
| <table width="821" border="1"> |
| <tr bgcolor="#CCCCCC"> |
| <th colspan="4"> |
| <div align="center"> |
| <b><font size="+1">Eclipse Reference Platforms</font></b> |
| </div> |
| </th> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><b>Operating system</b></td> |
| <td width="76"><b>Processor architecture</b></td> |
| <td width="59"><b>Window system</b></td> |
| <td width="453"><b>Java 2 Platform</b></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205">Microsoft Windows XP</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">Win32</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, version 1.4.2_03 for Microsoft Windows</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205">Microsoft Windows XP</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">Win32</td> |
| <td width="453"> |
| <p>IBM 32-bit SDK for Windows, Java 2 Technology Edition, Version 1.4.1</p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Red |
| Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, 1.4.2_03 for Linux x86</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Red |
| Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453">IBM 32-bit SDK for Linux on Intel architecture, Java 2 |
| Technology Edition, Version 1.4.1</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"> SuSE Linux 8.2</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, 1.4.2_03 for Linux x86</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"> SuSE Linux 8.2</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453">IBM 32-bit SDK for Linux on Intel architecture, Java 2 |
| Technology Edition, Version 1.4.1</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"> Sun Solaris 8</td> |
| <td width="76">SPARC</td> |
| <td width="59">Motif</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition, 1.4.2_03 for Solaris SPARC</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205">HP HP-UX 11i</td> |
| <td width="76">hp9000<br> |
| PA-RISC</td> |
| <td width="59">Motif</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> <span class="header">HP-UX |
| SDK for the Java 2 platform, version 1.4.2.00 for hp9000 PA-RISC</span></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205" height="21"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> |
| IBM AIX 5L Version 5.2</td> |
| <td width="76">PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="59">Motif</td> |
| <td width="453"> |
| <p>IBM 32-bit SDK for AIX, Java 2 Technology Edition, Version 1.4.1</p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Apple |
| Mac OS X 10.3</td> |
| <td width="76">PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="59">Carbon</td> |
| <td width="453">Java 2 Standard Edition 1.4.1 for Mac OS X</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"> QNX Neutrino RTOS <i>[version TBD]</i></td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">Photon</td> |
| <td width="453">IBM J9 VM for QNX <i>[version TBD]</i></td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| <p><img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> Although untested, Eclipse |
| should work fine on other OSes that support the same window system. For Win32: |
| Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, and Server 2003; SWT HTML viewer requires Internet |
| Explorer 5 (or higher). For GTK on other Linux systems: version 2.2.1 of the |
| GTK+ widget toolkit and associated librares (GLib, Pango); SWT HTML viewer requires |
| Mozilla 1.4GTK2. For Motif on other Linux systems: Open Motif 2.1 (included); |
| SWT HTML viewer requires Mozilla 1.4GTK2.</p> |
| <h4>Internationalization</h4> |
| <p>The Eclipse Platform is designed as the basis for internationalized products. |
| The user interface elements provided by the Eclipse SDK components, including |
| dialogs and error messages, are externalized. The English strings are provided |
| as the default resource bundles.</p> |
| <p>Latin-1 locales are supported by the Eclipse SDK on all of the above |
| operating environments; DBCS locales are supported by the Eclipse SDK on the |
| Windows, GTK, and Motif window systems; BIDI locales are supported by the |
| Eclipse SDK only on Windows operating environments. |
| <p>The Eclipse SDK supports GB 18030, the new Chinese code page standard, on |
| Windows XP and 2000, and Linux. |
| <p>German and Japanese locales are tested.</p> |
| <h4>BIDI support</h4> |
| <p>The Eclipse SDK is a development environment targeted at technical |
| professionals - not an end user application. However, the Eclipse SDK tools will |
| permit technical professionals who are working in English to build Hebrew/Arabic |
| end user Java programs which are themselves not based on the Eclipse SDK. The |
| BIDI support in the Eclipse SDK allows a Java programmer to work with BIDI |
| strings, code comments, etc. but the Eclipse SDK itself is not designed to be |
| localized for BIDI locales and its widget orientation can not be changed.</p> |
| <p><i>IMPORTANT: The above BIDI support is available only on Windows platforms.</i></p> |
| <h2><a name="Compatibility"></a>Compatibility with Previous Releases</h2> |
| <p>Eclipse 3.0 will be compatible with Eclipse 2.0 and 2.1 to the greatest |
| extent possible.</p> |
| <h3>Compatibility of Release 3.0 with 2.0 and 2.1</h3> |
| <p>Eclipse 3.0 will be compatible with Eclipse 2.0 and 2.1 to the greatest extent |
| possible. The nature and scope of some of the key plan items are such that the |
| only feasible solutions would break compatibility. Since breaking changes are |
| a disruption to the Eclipse community, they cannot be taken lightly. We (the |
| Eclipse PMC) will have an open discussion with the community before approving |
| a proposed breaking change for inclusion in 3.0. In other regards, Eclipse 3.0 |
| will be compatible with 2.0 and 2.1. We also aim to minimize the effort required |
| to port an existing plug-in to the 3.0 APIs. We will provide a comprehensive |
| <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/~checkout~/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/porting/eclipse_3_0_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.0 Porting Guide</em></a> that covers all areas of breaking API changes, and |
| describes how to port existing 2.1 plug-ins to 3.0. Up-to-date drafts of the |
| <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/~checkout~/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/porting/eclipse_3_0_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.0 Porting Guide</em></a> will be included with milestone builds so that it's |
| possible to climb aboard the 3.0 release wagon at the early stages, or to estimate |
| the amount of effort that will be involved in eventually porting existing plug-ins |
| to 3.0.</p> |
| <p><b>API Contract Compatibility:</b> Eclipse SDK 3.0 will be upwards contract-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 2.0 and 2.1 except in those areas noted in the <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/~checkout~/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/porting/eclipse_3_0_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.0 Porting Guide</em></a>. Programs that use affected APIs and extension points |
| will need to be ported to Eclipse SDK 3.0 APIs. Downward contract compatibility |
| is not supported. There is no guarantee that compliance with Eclipse SDK 3.0 |
| APIs would ensure compliance with Eclipse SDK 2.0 or 2.1 APIs. Refer to <i><a href="http://eclipse.org/eclipse/development/java-api-evolution.html">Evolving |
| Java-based APIs</a></i> for a discussion of the kinds of API changes that maintain |
| contract compatibility.</p> |
| <p><b>Binary (plug-in) Compatibility:</b> Eclipse SDK 3.0 will be upwards binary-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 2.0 and 2.1 except in those areas noted in the <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/~checkout~/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/porting/eclipse_3_0_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.0 Porting Guide</em></a>. <img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> |
| Eclipse 3.0 will include additional runtime compatibility mechanisms to provide |
| effective binary API compatibility. Downward plug-in compatibility is not supported. |
| Plug-ins for Eclipse SDK 3.0 will not be usable in Eclipse SDK 2.0 or 2.1. Refer |
| to <i><a href="http://eclipse.org/eclipse/development/java-api-evolution.html">Evolving |
| Java-based APIs</a></i> for a discussion of the kinds of API changes that maintain |
| binary compatibility. |
| <p><b>Source Compatibility:</b> Eclipse SDK 3.0 will be upwards source-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 2.0 or 2.1 except in the areas noted in the <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/~checkout~/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/porting/eclipse_3_0_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.0 Porting Guide</em></a>. This means that source files written to use Eclipse |
| SDK 2.0 or 2.1 APIs might successfully compile and run against Eclipse SDK 3.0 |
| APIs, although this is not guaranteed. Downward source compatibility is not |
| supported. If source files use new Eclipse SDK APIs, they will not be usable |
| with an earlier version of the Eclipse SDK. |
| <p><b>Workspace Compatibility:</b> Eclipse SDK 3.0 will be upwards |
| workspace-compatible with Eclipse SDK 2.0 or 2.1 unless noted. This means that |
| workspaces and projects created with Eclipse SDK 2.0 or 2.1 can be successfully |
| opened by Eclipse SDK 3.0 and upgraded to a 3.0 workspace. This includes both |
| hidden metadata, which is localized to a particular workspace, as well as |
| metadata files found within a workspace project (e.g., the .project file), which |
| may propagate between workspaces via file copying or team repositories. |
| Individual plug-ins developed for Eclipse SDK 3.0 should provide similar upwards |
| compatibility for their hidden and visible workspace metadata created by earlier |
| versions; 3.0 plug-in developers are responsible for ensuring that their |
| plug-ins recognize 3.0, 2.1, and 2.0 metadata and process it appropriately. User |
| interface session state may be discarded when a workspace is upgraded. Downward |
| workspace compatibility is not supported. A workspace created (or opened) by a |
| product based on Eclipse 3.0 will be unusable with a product based an earlier |
| version of Eclipse. Visible metadata files created (or overwritten) by Eclipse |
| 3.0 will generally be unusable with earlier versions of Eclipse. |
| <p><b>Non-compliant usage of API's</b>: All non-API methods and classes, and |
| certainly everything in a package with "internal" in its name, are |
| considered implementation details which may vary between operating environment |
| and are subject to change without notice. Client plug-ins that directly depend |
| on anything other than what is specified in the Eclipse SDK API are inherently |
| unsupportable and receive no guarantees about compatibility within a single |
| release much less with an earlier releases. Refer to <i><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-API%20use/eclipse-api-usage-rules.html">How |
| to Use the Eclipse API</a></i> for information about how to write compliant |
| plug-ins. |
| <h2>Eclipse Project Subprojects</h2> |
| The Eclipse Project consists of 3 subprojects. Each subproject is covered in its |
| own section: |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#Platform">Eclipse Platform subproject</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#JDT">Java development tools (JDT) subproject</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#PDE">Plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>For each subproject, the items listed reflect new features of the Eclipse |
| Platform, or areas where existing features will be significantly reworked. Each |
| item indicates the components likely affected by that work item (many items |
| involve coordinated changes to several components). Numbers in parentheses link |
| to bugzilla problem reports for that plan item (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/buglist.cgi?product=JDT&product=PDE&product=Platform&keywords=plan&target_milestone=3.0&target_milestone=3.0+M1&target_milestone=3.0+M2&target_milestone=3.0+M3&target_milestone=3.0+M4&target_milestone=3.0+M5">query |
| bugzilla for all 3.0 plan items</a>). |
| <h2><a name="Platform">Eclipse Platform subproject</a></h2> |
| <p>The Eclipse Platform provides the most fundamental building blocks. Plan |
| items reflect new features of the Eclipse Platform, or areas where existing |
| features will be significantly reworked. Many of the changes under consideration |
| for the next release of the Eclipse Platform address three major themes. Since |
| each theme has a number of items, the committed, proposed, and deferred plan |
| items are grouped in sections by theme:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#ThemeUserExperience">User experience theme</a> - Improving |
| Eclipse from the point of view of the end user.</li> |
| <li><a href="#ThemeResponsiveUI">Responsive UI theme</a> - Making it easier to |
| write Eclipse plug-ins that keep the UI responsive.</li> |
| <li><a href="#ThemeRCP">Rich client platform theme</a> - Generalizing Eclipse |
| into a platform for building non-IDE applications.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>In addition, there are important Eclipse Platform improvements that do not |
| naturally fit into any of the above themes.</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#OtherPlatform">Other Eclipse Platform items</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <h3><a name="ThemeUserExperience">Theme: User Experience</a></h3> |
| <p>Improving Eclipse from the point of view of the end user. This includes |
| improving both the "out of the box" experience so that new users are |
| productive faster, and finding better ways to scale up to large numbers of |
| plug-ins without overwhelming the user.</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, User Experience theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Improve UI scalability.</b> Despite efforts to ensure UI scalability |
| with a large base of available tools, the Eclipse workbench still intimidates |
| many users with long menus, wide toolbars, and lengthy flat lists of |
| preferences. This problem is acute in large Eclipse-based products. The |
| Platform should provide additional ways for controlling workbench clutter, |
| such as further menu and toolbar customizability, distinguishing between |
| novice and advanced functions, supporting different developer roles, and more |
| specific object contributions for particular file types. [Platform UI, |
| Platform Debug, JDT UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37929">37929</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Improve initial user experience.</b> Users who are new to an |
| Eclipse-based product can find their first experiences with it overwhelming, |
| even daunting. The initial experience would be improved if a product could |
| preconfigure the workbench to show only the subset of function that a new user |
| really needs; welcome pages could be personalized for particular users roles |
| or levels of experience. [Platform UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37664">37664</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Improve UI affordances.</b> There are a number of areas of the UI where |
| Eclipse is not providing enough cues to the user (e.g., no cue for available |
| help, no cue for maximize/restore view, no cue for mandatory/optional fields |
| in wizards). Make a systematic pass though the UI to improve its affordances. |
| [Platform UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37667">37667</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Improve file encoding support.</b> Eclipse 2.1 uses a single global file |
| encoding setting for reading and writing files in the workspace. This is |
| problematic; for example, when Java source files in the workspace use OS |
| default file encoding while XML files in the workspace use UTF-8 file |
| encoding. The Platform should support non-uniform file encodings. [Platform |
| Core, Platform UI, Text, Search, Compare, JDT UI, JDT Core] [Theme: User |
| experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37933">37933</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Evolve the Eclipse user experience.</b> Eclipse 3.0 should have a new |
| look that makes more effective use of the capabilities of current desktop |
| computers. This includes allowing the user to customize the workbench by |
| creating floating toolbars and views, and supporting tear-off views and |
| dockable toolbars where supported by the underlying window system. [Platform |
| UI, JDT UI, SWT] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37997">37997</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve keyboard bindings. </strong>Several things should be done |
| to improve keyboard bindings. First, custom key bindings currently work only |
| in the main Eclipse window, and not in secondary windows like dialogs, |
| wizards, and floating views (another plan item). For example, custom editor |
| key bindings do not work in a text control in a preference dialog. Eclipse |
| should support custom key bindings in the places where the user reasonably |
| expects. Second, the key customization dialog should be improved. Finally, |
| make a systematic pass through the UI to rationalize the initial set of key |
| bindings. [Platform UI, SWT] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37934">37934</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve editor management.</strong> The current mechanism for |
| switching between editors using tabs does not scale to having many open |
| editors. Eclipse should provide a more scalable and stable, yet efficient, UI |
| for switching between editors. [Platform UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37670">37670</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> revised item - splitting |
| deferred) <strong>Improve text editor interaction. </strong>The text editor |
| should support folding of text regions, which can be leveraged by the Java |
| editor to collapse regions, such as an individual method's body or Javadoc |
| comment, or the import declarations of a compilation unit. [Platform Text, |
| JDT UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37671">37671</a>) |
| <em> <img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><strong>Improve text editor presentation.</strong> The text editor should |
| support an optional marginal change bar that can show how the current document |
| differs from another of its states, such as a local history state or a |
| repository version. Also, text editors should support for emphasizing a text |
| region by changing its background color. [Platform Text, JDT UI] [Theme: User |
| Experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37672">37672</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve text editor typing.</strong> The set of key actions |
| available in the text editor should be enriched with additional common |
| operations like insert line, duplicate line, transpose, and convert to |
| uppercase. The current JDT editor support for templates with variables should |
| be generalized and pushed down so that it is available in all text editors. |
| [Platform Text, JDT UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37674">37674</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve global text search/replace.</strong> Global text search should |
| allow regular expressions in search patterns. The replace action should be |
| more visible in the UI, and be easier to use in the case of bulk changes. |
| [Platform Search] [Theme: User Experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37675">37675</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><strong>Allow dynamic help content.</strong> Existing help content consists |
| entirely of static HTML pages. Additional flexibility would be provided by |
| allowing help content to include JSPs, possibly with access to the user's |
| Eclipse environment. [Platform Help] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37676">37676</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Simplify update manager UI.</b> User feedback indicates that the update |
| manager UI is too powerful and occasionally confusing to users. It should |
| be simplified in order to provide a clear path for the common tasks, embrace |
| progressively disclosure, separate update search from platform configuration |
| tasks, and make more economical use of screen real estate for properties. |
| [Platform Update] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37678">37678</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently committed |
| item) <b>Display HTML in a widget.</b> In Eclipse 2.0 and 2.1, the only supported |
| option for rendering HTML in the workbench is to use OLE to link to IE. This |
| support is Windows only; there is no such option in other operating environments. |
| Even on Windows, this only works for IE and not other browsers. There are |
| already several Eclipse components that could benefit from HTML display functionality |
| in a widget: welcome pages; update manager update site overview; hovers that |
| show Javadoc. The Platform should provide a portable way to display HTML in |
| a widget and support it in all operating environments. [Platform UI, SWT] |
| [Themes: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36952">36952</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, User Experience theme)</h4> |
| <p>The following work items are being actively investigated, but we are not yet |
| able to promise any solution for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Allow editors to open files outside workspace.</b> A common request is |
| to be able to use Eclipse to open a file that is not part of the workspace, |
| or perhaps even one on a remote system. In addition, applications would like |
| to provide file extension associations so that double-clicking on a file in |
| the OS desktop would open the associated Eclipse editor. The operations and |
| capabilities available on these "outside of the workspace" files |
| would need to be defined. [Platform UI] [Themes: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37935">37935</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Improve workspace synchronization with file system.</b> A file resource |
| in the workspace gets out of sync when the underlying file in the file system |
| is created, deleted, or rewritten outside of Eclipse. File resources usually |
| remains out of sync until the user explicitly hits Refresh. The Eclipse |
| Platform should provide ways to keep the in-memory representation in sync with |
| the file system; for example, by hooking OS file system callbacks where |
| available, and by polling for file system changes in a background thread. |
| [Platform Core, Platform UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36962">36962</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Content-type-based editor lookup.</strong> The choice of editor is |
| currently based on file name patterns. This is not very flexible, and breaks |
| down when fundamentally different types of content are found in files with |
| undistinguished file names or internal formats. For example, many different |
| models with specialized editors get stored in XML format files named *.xml. |
| Eclipse should support a notion of content type for files and resources, and |
| use these to drive decisions like which editor to use. This feature would also |
| be used by team providers when doing comparisons based on file type. The |
| several existing file-type registries in Eclipse should be consolidated. |
| [Platform Core, Platform UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37668">37668</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve support for opening workspaces.</strong> Many users use multiple |
| workspaces as a way to keep their different projects or work items separate. |
| Currently, this requires launching Eclipse multiple times with different command |
| line arguments, which is not particularly convenient for users. Moreover, |
| when the command line argument is not specified, the workspace location defaults |
| to a directory inside where the code for Eclipse is installed. Eclipse should |
| improve how workspaces get opened, use a user-specific default workspace location |
| more suitable for shared multi-user Eclipse installs, and facilitate switching |
| between workspaces. [Platform Core, Platform UI] [Themes: User experience] |
| (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37681">37681</a>)</p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently added item) |
| <b>Add cheat sheets. </b> A cheat sheet is an instance of a simple kind of |
| workflow support used to help the user carry out a sequence of steps. For |
| example, "create and deploy a plug-in" 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. The |
| Welcome Page editor is a simple example of a cheat sheet. Provide a standard |
| API for creating cheat sheets. [Platform UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36946">36946</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, User Experience theme)</h4> |
| <p>These items are next in line for this release. As committers complete their |
| assigned tasks, or additional help becomes available, some of these items may be |
| committed for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Add table of contents support to wizards </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36947">36947</a>)<br> |
| <b>Add project templates </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36960">36960</a>)<br> |
| <b>Allow automation of common tasks</b> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37936">37936</a>)<br> |
| <b>Support workspace checkpoint and rollback </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36958">36958</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Display HTML help infopops </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37677">37677</a>)<br> |
| <b>Add capabilities </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36959">36959</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve local history </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37679">37679</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Add Eclipse automation </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37680">37680</a>)<br> |
| (<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently de-committed |
| item) <b>Aid ongoing learning</b> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37666">37666</a>)<br> |
| (<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently deferred item) |
| <b>Provide a general purpose navigator</b> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36961">36961</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h3><a name="ThemeResponsiveUI">Theme: Responsive UI</a></h3> |
| <p>Making it easier to write Eclipse plug-ins that keep the UI responsive. Areas |
| for improvement run the gamut from the UI becoming sluggish (or temporarily |
| freezing) when blocking operations are done in the UI thread, to long-running |
| operations like builds and searches which could be performed in the background |
| while the user continues to work.</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, Responsive UI theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Support concurrent activities.</b> In Eclipse 2.0 and 2.1, certain |
| operations like builds and searches always run synchronously and block the |
| user at the UI from doing work until the build has completed. The Eclipse |
| Platform should support operations running asynchronously in the background, |
| so that the user is not forced to be entirely idle while long-running |
| operations are in progress. This will likely require an improved concurrency |
| architecture with more explicit rules. [Platform UI, Platform Core, Platform |
| Text, JDT Core, JDT UI, PDE] [Theme: Responsive UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36957">36957</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Establish UI responsiveness targets.</strong> Eclipse should |
| establish quantitative responsiveness targets for key user actions, such as |
| opening an editor, popping up a view context menu, switching perspectives, |
| etc. These guidelines should be supported by automated benchmarks that allow |
| the responsiveness of the Eclipse UI to be measured and tracked. [Platform, |
| JDT, PDE] [Theme: Responsive UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37682">37682</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Improve update manager search.</b> Update manager searches for new and |
| updated features are done in the Eclipse client. These searches, which can |
| be time- consuming, are done only on request, and the user cannot do anything |
| in Eclipse until the search has completed. There are several ways update manager |
| searches could be improved: provide update search APIs; allow searches to |
| run asynchronously in the background; allow background searches to be scheduled |
| periodically, or on startup; allow searches to be done on the server, thereby |
| enabling sites to provide custom search implementations. [Platform Update] |
| [Theme: Responsive UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37684">37684</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><strong>Improve scalability for large help books.</strong> Improve scalability |
| for large help books. Although the help system does deal well with large collections |
| of topics distributed across many books, browser performance degrades severely |
| when a large number of topics (2000+) are concentrated in a single book. This |
| performance problem needs to be addressed, possibly by lazily loading navigation |
| information. [Platform Help] [Theme: Responsive UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37685">37685</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, Responsive UI theme)</h4> |
| <p>The following work items are being actively investigated, but we are not yet |
| able to promise any solution for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Address platform-specific UI performance problems.</strong> There |
| is a noticeable UI performance and responsiveness difference between Eclipse |
| running on Windows and Eclipse running on Linux GTK, Linux Motif, or QNX Photon, |
| all on the same hardware, with Windows clearly outperforming the others. Improvements |
| made to SWT alone have not reduced this "performance gap" enough. |
| In order to improve Eclipse performance in the other operating environments, |
| we need to make a concerted effort to determine the root causes (suspects |
| include low-level thread scheduling and synchronization), and then take steps |
| to address them. [SWT, Platform UI] [Theme: Responsive UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37683">37683</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, Responsive UI theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h3><a name="ThemeRCP">Theme: Rich client platform</a></h3> |
| <p>Eclipse was designed as a universal tool integration platform. However, many |
| facets and components of Eclipse are not particularly specific to IDEs and make |
| equal sense in non-IDE applications (e.g., window-based GUI, plug-ins, help |
| system, update manager). Certain changes, like factoring out IDE-specific |
| facilities, would allow the Eclipse Platform to be generalized into a rich |
| client platform for building non-IDE applications.</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, Rich Client Platform theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Enable Eclipse to be used as a rich client platform.</b> Eclipse was |
| designed as a universal tool integration platform. However, many facets and |
| components of Eclipse are not particularly specific to IDEs and would make |
| equal sense in non-IDE applications (e.g., window-based GUI, plug-ins, help |
| system, update manager). The Eclipse Platform should factor out and segregate |
| IDE-specific facilities (e.g., everything having to do with workspace |
| resources) so that a subset of it can be used as a rich client platform for |
| building applications. [Platform Core, Platform UI, Platform Update] [Theme: |
| Rich client platform] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36967">36967</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Provide user settings.</b> It should be possible to store user settings |
| (preferences, compiler settings, repositories lists, etc.) that are not |
| specific to a workspace separate from the workspace, so that they can be used |
| in other workspaces or by other users. [Platform Core] [Themes: Rich client |
| platform] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36965">36965</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Remove configuration state from workspace metadata area.</strong> |
| Feature and plug-in configuration state is currently stored in the metadata |
| subdirectory of each workspace. This has the drawback that product configuration |
| actions done in one workspace do not carry over to other workspaces. Configuration |
| state should be moved out of the workspace into the install directory (single-user |
| installs) or to a dedicated read-write product configuration area (shared |
| multi-user installs). This would mean that configuration states would be in |
| a known location for external tools to find. Different workspaces might still |
| have different configurations, which could be achieved by referencing a named |
| configuration state stored centrally. [Platform Update] [Theme: Rich client |
| platform] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37686">37686</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Provide update manager operations API.</b> Most of the logic currently |
| in the update manager UI should be pushed into a new operations layer. This |
| operations layer would be to Update Core what JFace is to SWT. The APIs would |
| enable update tasks to run headless, and would enable updates to be scripted. |
| [Platform Update] [Theme: Rich client platform] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37688">37688</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Allow uninstalling features.</b> The update manager can disable features |
| and plug- ins, but this is done without deleting their files. The update manager |
| should keep track of the features and plug-ins that it installs, and fully |
| support uninstalling them. [Platform Update] [Theme: Rich client platform] |
| (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37689">37689</a>) <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> |
| Work completed</em></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, Rich Client Platform theme)</h4> |
| <p>The following work items are being actively investigated, but we are not yet |
| able to promise any solution for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Support adding and removing plug-ins dynamically.</strong> |
| Installation and configuration of features and plug-ins currently only happens |
| during Eclipse Platform startup. The plug-in registry should be made dynamic |
| so that features and plug-ins can be added or removed without necessarily |
| having to restart Eclipse. This will also entail adding mechanisms for |
| handling the arrival and departure of extensions and extension points. |
| Additional mechanisms such as services will be added to support the dynamic |
| programming model. Alternative runtimes (e.g., OSGi) which offer explicit |
| support for dynamic components will also be investigated and used as |
| appropriate. Plug-in developers will likely require additional support from |
| PDE in writing and debugging well-behaved dynamic plug-ins. [Platform Core, |
| PDE] [Theme: Rich client platform] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37687">37687</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Support product branding.</strong> Eclipse-based products need the |
| ability to adopt a product-specific look and/or apply corporate branding. |
| Eclipse should provide mechanisms to allow such customization. This must be |
| done in such a way that plug-ins can be developed independent of any |
| particular look, and can be shared across products with different looks. |
| [Platform UI, SWT] [Theme: Rich client platform] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37693">37693</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, Rich Client Platform theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently deferred |
| item) <strong>Add a security model </strong> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37692">37692</a>)<br> |
| (<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently deferred item) |
| <strong>Allow plug-in deactivation</strong> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36956">36956</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h3><a name="OtherPlatform">Other Eclipse Platform Items</a></h3> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, no theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Improve SWT accessibility support.</strong> In Eclipse 2.1, SWT controls |
| tap in to the MSAA 1.3 accessibility support, allowing accessible UIs to be |
| built with SWT on Windows. SWT accessibility support should be extended to |
| GTK operating environments, and updated on Windows for MSAA 2.0. [SWT] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37694">37694</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Improve SWT support for right-to-left languages.</b> Allow the appropriate |
| widget orientation for right-to-left languages. [SWT] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36951">36951</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Remove dependency on Xerces.</strong> The Xerces plug-in currently |
| provides XML support for the Eclipse platform. XML support is now incorporated |
| into J2SE 1.4, and the presence of the Xerces plug-in can create conflicts. |
| Eclipse Platform should consistently use the built-in XML support that ships |
| with JDK 1.4, or possibly an alternative XML parser such as <a href="http://www.xmlpull.org/">XMLPull</a> |
| which has a much smaller footprint. [Platform Core] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37696">37696</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> revised item - script |
| refactoring deferred) <strong>Improve Ant.</strong> Eclipse should allow the |
| option of running Ant in a separately-specified JVM. [Ant Core, Ant UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37697">37697</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Support HTML help pages in archives.</b> A JAR or zip file is a convenient |
| way to keep the large number of HTML files of a Javadoc web together. The |
| Eclipse help system should also plug-ins to contribute (and refer to) HTML |
| pages located in archives. [Platform Help] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37698">37698</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Improve organizational control over product updates.</b> In organizations |
| where there are many users and installs of the same Eclipse product, the local |
| administrator should have ways of managing how the product installs gets updated. |
| For example, the local administrator should be able to proxy a remote update |
| site and serve up supported updates hosted locally within the organization, |
| thereby conserving bandwidth, minimizing download failures, and keeping things |
| inside the organization's firewall. [Platform Update] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37702">37702</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Provide working sets for help infocenter.</b> Persistent help working |
| sets were added in Eclipse 2.1. This support is not available is infocenters, |
| where the user must still rely on searches (which are not persisted). Persistent |
| working set support should be added to infocenters as well. [Platform Help] |
| (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37703">37703</a>) <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> |
| Work completed</em></p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently committed |
| item) <strong> Provide Swing interoperability.</strong> Eclipse plug-in developers |
| often have existing Swing-based UIs that they would like to integrate with |
| Eclipse. Eclipse should provide a wrapper that allows Swing widgets to be |
| embedded within a SWT UI. [SWT] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37724">37724</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed for Windows, |
| Linux</em></p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> new item) <strong>Support |
| multi-instance views.</strong> The workbench should support multi-instance |
| views. A multi-instance view allows multiple instances to be opened side-by-side |
| in a workbench window. [Platform UI] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=50814">50814</a>)</p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> new item) <strong>Provide |
| forms-based UI toolkit.</strong> Eclipse should provide a toolkit for building |
| UIs similar to web page forms (a mixture of text, graphics, and simple controls |
| like combo boxes, buttons, and entry fields). This style of UI is currently |
| used for the GUI pages of PDE editors and for the Update Manager view. This |
| toolkit would be an optional component suitable for use with the generic workbench |
| in RCP configurations. [Platform UI] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=50815">50815</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, no theme)</h4> |
| <p>The following work items are being actively investigated, but we are not yet |
| able to promise any solution for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Provide improved table and table tree widgets. </b>Eclipse customers are |
| finding that the existing table and table tree custom SWT widgets lacks |
| required functionality, exhibit undesirable layout and resizing behavior, and |
| are generally ill-suited for presenting large data models. Their largely |
| unsuccessful attempts to define their own custom table tree widget have shown |
| it to be a very challenging task requiring expert-level knowledge of SWT. SWT |
| should provide improved table and table tree widgets. [SWT, Platform UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37998">37998</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve feature model and build support.</strong> The current |
| nested feature structure is static and unconditional. This makes nested |
| features hard for developers to manage (version brittleness, platform-specific |
| feature ids) and greatly increases the download size of service releases. We |
| should allow all included features and a feature's required plug-ins to be |
| conditionalized, and improve PDE to build nested features and fill in |
| constituent version numbers at build time. [Platform Core, Platform Update, |
| PDE] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37713">37713</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Improve team control over resource operations.</strong> Eclipse |
| currently provides limited hooks (edit/save, move/delete) so that team |
| providers can control or influence operations on resources in the workspace. |
| However, there are some aspects and operations over which team providers have |
| little or no influence, such as resource creation and copying. Eclipse should |
| offer team providers better control over resource operations. [Platform Core, |
| Platform Team] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37722">37722</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Support logical resources.</strong> The Eclipse Platform supports a |
| strong physical view of projects, files, and folders in the workspace. |
| However, there are many situations where a physical view is not the most |
| salient or useful for many purposes. In some cases, multiple distinct objects |
| happen to be stored in a single file, like an archive. Conversely, in other |
| cases, something that is logically a single object is stored across multiple |
| files. This discrepancy between logical and physical creates problems for |
| common operations such as searching, comparing, and versioning, which need to |
| work in the physical realm. Eclipse should support some way of mapping between |
| a logical view and the physical organization of files on disk. [Platform Core, |
| Platform UI] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37723">37723</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Port SWT to 64-bit operating environments. </strong>SWT currently |
| only runs on 32-bit operating environments. SWT should be ported to run on |
| current 64-bit operating environments. [SWT] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37721">37721</a>)</p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> new item) <strong>Make |
| workspace builds more scalable.</strong> Owing to the build-all-projects-one-project-at-a-time |
| nature of incremental project builders, large workspaces can take a long time |
| to build when there are extensive inter-project dependencies. The build mechanism |
| needs to be more scalable in such cases, possibly by introducing builds scoped |
| to working sets. [Platform Core, Platform UI, JDT] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=50816">50816</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse Platform subproject, no theme)</h4> |
| <p>These items are next in line for this release. As committers complete their |
| assigned tasks, or additional help becomes available, some of these items may be |
| committed for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <b>Improve structure of existing documentation </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36964">36964</a>)<br> |
| <b>Improve update manager downloading </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37699">37699</a>)<br> |
| <b>Provide one-click update for Eclipse builds </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37701">37701</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Support GUI test tools </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37704">37704</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve team API </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37705">37705</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Support native skinning in SWT </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37706">37706</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Make SWT work in a browser</strong> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37707">37707</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Complete Mac OS X port </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37708">37708</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Support OpenGL </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37709">37709</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Support MDI </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37710">37710</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve message bundles </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37712">37712</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Allow infocenter to run on existing app server </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37714">37714</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve plug-in registry </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37715">37715</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Provide common command infrastructure </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37716">37716</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Provide better examples and snippets </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37717">37717</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve support for multi-page editors </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37718">37718</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Unify editors and views </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37719">37719</a>)<br> |
| (<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently de-committed |
| item) <b>Improve action contributions</b> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36968">36968</a>)<br> |
| (<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently de-committed |
| item) <strong>Improve UI guidelines</strong> (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37695">37695</a>)</blockquote> |
| <h4>Rejected Items (Eclipse Platform subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse Platform subproject.) |
| <h2><a name="JDT">Java development tools (JDT) subproject</a></h2> |
| <p><a href="http://www.eclipse.org/jdt/index.html">Java development tools</a> (JDT) |
| implements a Java IDE based on the Eclipse Platform. The following work items |
| reflect new features of JDT, or areas where existing features will be |
| significantly reworked. The kinds of changes under consideration for the next |
| release of JDT address two general themes. The committed, proposed, and deferred |
| plan items are grouped in sections by theme:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#ThemeJavaFamily">Extended Java family theme</a> - Generalizing |
| JDT to handle more than just Java source files.</li> |
| <li><a href="#ThemeJDTUserExperience">User experience theme</a> - Improving |
| JDT from the point of view of the end user writing Java code.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>In addition, there are important Eclipse Platform improvements that do not |
| naturally fit into either of the above themes.</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#OtherJDT">Other JDT items</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <h3><a name="ThemeJavaFamily">Theme: Extended Java Family</a></h3> |
| <p>Generalize JDT to handle more members of the Java family than just Java |
| source files. This includes widening to handle Java-like languages (such as JSP |
| and SQLj), and embracing non-Java files containing references to Java language |
| elements (such as plug-in manifest files and J2EE deployment descriptors).</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, Extended Java Family theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Improve support for Java-like source files.</b> JSP and SQLj are two |
| instances of languages that use Java syntax. Eclipse should provide better |
| support for Java-like source files. For instance, it should be possible to |
| index these files so that Java search can find the Java declarations and |
| references within; it should be possible to use Java code assist on the Java |
| passages; refactoring should be able to take these files into account; the |
| debugger should be able to step through the Java passages (<a href="http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=045" target="_blank">JSR-045</a>); |
| error highlighting should be supported across sections; etc. [JDT Core, JDT |
| UI, JDT Debug] [Theme: Extended Java family] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36939">36939</a>)</p> |
| <p><b>Support Java references outside Java code.</b> References to Java |
| elements in particular classes can show up in specific kinds of non-Java |
| source files, such as plug-in manifest files (plugin.xml), extension point |
| schema files, and Java launch configurations in the workspace. These |
| references should also participate in Java operations like search, move, |
| rename, and other refactoring operations. JDT will surface APIs that enable |
| other plug-ins to contribute to and participate in these operations. [JDT |
| Core, JDT UI, JDT Debug, PDE] [Theme: Extended Java family] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37937">37937</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, Extended Java Family theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, Extended Java Family theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h3><a name="ThemeJDTUserExperience">Theme: User Experience</a></h3> |
| <p>Improve JDT from the point of view of the end user reading, writing, and |
| navigating in Java code.</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, User Experience theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Present logical view of Java objects in debugger.</b> The current debugger |
| always presents the internal structure of Java objects. For instances of standard |
| data structures like java.util.HashMap, the Java debugger should be able to |
| present a higher level logical view of the object (i.e., to show it as a table |
| of key-to-value mappings). [JDT Debug] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36942">36942</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p><b>Improve refactoring.</b> JDT should add new refactorings, such as add |
| parameter, convert constructor to factory method, and extract superclass. JDT |
| should also allow other plug-ins to contribute specialized refactoring |
| operations, and provide refactoring APIs and infrastructure to make it |
| possible for them to do so. [JDT Core, JDT UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36943">36943</a>)</p> |
| <p><strong>Improve code formatter.</strong> JDT should provide a new code |
| formatter implementation that is more flexible and supports many more styles. |
| [JDT Core] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37657">37657</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, User Experience theme)</h4> |
| <p>The following work items are being actively investigated, but we are not yet |
| able to promise any solution for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Improve editor code navigation.</strong> The Java editor should |
| allow the user to navigate in the type hierarchy from a selected element. For |
| instance, the editor should show override indicators (currently shown only in |
| the outliner view), and allow direct navigation to the declaration of the |
| overridden method. The editor should also provide more information about the |
| currently selected element such as all referenced types, call sites, |
| overriders, implementers, declaration. [JDT UI] [Theme: User experience] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37658">37658</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, User Experience theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h3><a name="OtherJDT">Other JDT Items</a></h3> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, no theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Improve shared working copies.</strong> There is mechanism that allows |
| working copies of source files to be analyzed in the context of the rest of |
| the Java model. Currently, shared working copies are hard to manage. Eclipse |
| should simplify the management of working copies so that they can be used |
| more transparently. [JDT Core] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37659">37659</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, no theme)</h4> |
| <p>The following work items are being actively investigated, but we are not yet |
| able to promise any solution for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Add early support for J2SE 1.5 features.</b> The next feature release of |
| J2SE is version 1.5 ("Tiger"), targeted to ship in the first half of |
| 2004. While the contents of this release are still under discussion (<a href="http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=176" target="_blank">JSR-176</a>), |
| this release is expected to contain extensions to the Java language, including |
| generic types (<a href="http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=014" target="_blank">JSR-014</a>), |
| enumerations, autoboxing, enhanced for loops, static imports (all <a href="http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=201" target="_blank">JSR-201</a>), |
| metadata facility (<a href="http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=175">JSR-175</a>), |
| and compiler APIs (<a href="http://jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=199" target="_blank">JSR-199</a>). |
| Supporting these new language and compiler features will require major changes |
| to the Eclipse Java compiler, JDT Core APIs, and JDT UI, and may suggest new |
| Java 1.5-specific refactorings. Although Eclipse 3.0 might ship before J2SE |
| 1.5 does, Eclipse should contain early support for J2SE 1.5 features wherever |
| possible [JDT Core, JDT UI, JDT Debug] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36938">36938</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse JDT subproject, no theme)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> recently deferred |
| item) <b>Harmonize Java source manipulation.</b> The Java model is currently |
| implemented in terms of JDOM, an early precursor of the AST facility added |
| in 2.0. JDT will move to an AST-based implementation of the Java model, and |
| deprecate JDOM. [JDT Core] (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36941">36941</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Rejected Items (Eclipse JDT subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse JDT subproject.) |
| <h2><a name="PDE">Plug-in development environment (PDE) subproject</a></h2> |
| The <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/pde/index.html">plug-in development |
| environment</a> (PDE) consists of tools for developing plug-ins for the |
| Eclipse Platform. The following work items reflect new features of PDE, or areas |
| where existing features will be significantly reworked. |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><strong>Add JUnit support for testing plug-ins.</strong> PDE should include |
| JUnit-based support for testing plug-ins (an early version of this support |
| is found in the optional <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/~checkout~/jdt-ui-home/plugins/org.eclipse.jdt.junit/index.html">org.eclipse.pde.junit</a> |
| plug-in). (<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37663">37663</a>) |
| <em><img src="ok.gif" width="12" height="12"> Work completed</em></p> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" width="12" height="12"> new item) <strong>Add |
| support for new plug-in format.</strong> PDE should provide support for developing |
| and deploying plug-ins with explicit OSGI bundle manifests. The goal is provide |
| a seamless experience for developers working with a mix of traditional and |
| new style plug-ins. (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=50921">50921</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <p>These items are next in line for this release. As committers complete their |
| assigned tasks, or additional help becomes available, some of these items may be |
| committed for this release:</p> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><b>Help developers tune plug-in performance </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36944">36944</a>)<br> |
| <b>Support context-sensitive help for plug-ins </b>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=36945">36945</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve PDE model implementation </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37660">37660</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve PDE editors </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37661">37661</a>)<br> |
| <strong>Improve plug-in debugging </strong>(<a href="http://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37662">37662</a>)</p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Rejected Items (Eclipse PDE subproject)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse PDE subproject.) |
| |
| </body> |
| |
| </html> |