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| <h1>Eclipse Platform Project<br> |
| DRAFT 3.2 Plan</h1> |
| <p>Last revised 13:21 EDT Aug. 5, 2005 (<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> |
| marks interesting changes since the <a href="eclipse_project_plan_3_2_20050214.html">initial |
| draft of Feb. 14, 2005</a>)</p> |
| <p> <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 the Eclipse Platform after 3.1, designated release 3.2. |
| <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 project</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#JDT">Java development tools (JDT) project</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#PDE">Plug-in development environment (PDE) project</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 Platform 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 three projects under |
| the Eclipse Platform top-level project. Each plan item covers a feature or API |
| that is to be added to the Eclipse Platform, or some aspect of the Eclipse Platform |
| 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 tuning, 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. The intent of the plan is to account for all interesting feature work. |
| <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 or deferred.</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> |
| </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 Platform Project, available as versions |
| tagged "R3_2" in the Eclipse Platform Project <a href="http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/">CVS |
| repository</a>.</li> |
| <li>Eclipse Platform Project SDK (includes runtime binary and SDK for Platform, |
| JDT, and PDE) (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>Eclipse Platform runtime binary and SDK distributions (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>Eclipse RCP runtime binary and SDK distributions (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>JDT runtime binary and SDK distributions (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>PDE runtime binary and SDK distributions (downloadable).</li> |
| <li>Eclipse Platform 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 Aug. 12, 2005 - Milestone 1 (3.2 M1) - stable build</li> |
| <li> Friday Sep. 23, 2005 - Milestone 2 (3.2 M2) - stable build</li> |
| <li> Friday Nov. 4, 2005 - Milestone 3 (3.2 M3) - stable build</li> |
| <li> Friday Dec. 16, 2005 - Milestone 4 (3.2 M4) - stable build</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Additional 2006 milestones will be added later. Our target is to complete 3.2 |
| in 2Q2006. 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 Platform SDK is "pure" Java code and has no |
| direct dependence on the underlying operating system. The chief dependence is |
| therefore on the Java Platform itself. The 3.2 release of the Eclipse Platform |
| Project is written and compiled against version 1.5 of the Java Platform APIs |
| (i.e., Java SE 5) , and targeted to run on version 1.5 of the Java Runtime Environment, |
| Standard Edition. Portions of the the Eclipse Platform (including the SWT, |
| OSGi and JDT core plug-ins) are targeted to a wider class of operating environments, |
| requiring their source code to only reference facilities available in earlier Java |
| versions or smaller Java ME profiles [details TBD].</p> |
| <p>There are many different implementations of the Java Platform running atop |
| a variety of operating systems. We focus Eclipse Platform testing on a handful |
| of popular <span class="header">combinations of operating system and Java 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 a 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 Platform SDK 3.2 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" summary="Eclipse Reference Platforms"> |
| <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" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0 Update 4 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> <img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> |
| IBM 32-bit SDK for Windows, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0</p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205" height="22"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> |
| Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0 Update 4 for Linux x86</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Red |
| Hat Enterprise Linux WS 4</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> IBM |
| 32-bit SDK for Linux on Intel architecture, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205">SLES 9</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0 Update 4 for Linux x86</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205">SLES 9</td> |
| <td width="76">Intel x86</td> |
| <td width="59">GTK</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> IBM |
| 32-bit SDK for Linux on Intel architecture, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Solaris 10</td> |
| <td width="76">SPARC</td> |
| <td width="59">Motif</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Sun |
| Java 2 Standard Edition 5.0 Update 2 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"><p><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> HP-UX |
| JDK for the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition for 5.0 01</p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205" height="21">IBM AIX 5L Version 5.2</td> |
| <td width="76">PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="59">Motif</td> |
| <td width="453"> <p><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> |
| IBM 32-bit SDK for AIX, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0</p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="205"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Apple |
| Mac OS X 10.4</td> |
| <td width="76">PowerPC</td> |
| <td width="59">Carbon</td> |
| <td width="453"><img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> Java |
| 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 Release 1 for Tiger</td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
| <p>Although untested, the Eclipse Platform 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 libraries |
| (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> |
| <p>An early access version of the Eclipse Platform is also available for 64-bit |
| Linux GTK. Testing has been limited to early access 64-bit J2SEs running on |
| x86-64 processors.</p> |
| <p>SWT is also supported on the QNX Neutrino operating system, x86 processor, |
| Photon window system, and IBM J9 VM version 2.0. Eclipse 3.2 on Windows or Linux |
| can be used to cross-develop QNX applications. (Eclipse 3.2 is unavailable on QNX |
| because there is currently no 1.5 J2SE for QNX.)</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 Platform SDK on all of the above |
| operating environments; DBCS locales are supported by the Eclipse Platform SDK |
| on the Windows, GTK, and Motif window systems; BIDI locales are supported by |
| the Eclipse Platform SDK only on Windows operating environments. |
| <p>The Eclipse Platform SDK supports GB 18030 (level 1), the Chinese code page |
| standard, on Windows XP and 2000, and Linux/GTK. |
| <p>German and Japanese locales are tested.</p> |
| <h4>BIDI support</h4> |
| <p>SWT fully supports BIDI on Windows. On Linux GTK, SWT supports entering |
| and displaying BIDI text. Within these limitations, the Eclipse Platform |
| SDK tools are BIDI enabled.</p> |
| <h2><a name="Compatibility"></a>Compatibility with Previous Releases</h2> |
| <h3>Compatibility of Release 3.2 with 3.1</h3> |
| <p>Eclipse 3.2 will be compatible with Eclipse 3.1 (and, hence, with 3.0).</p> |
| <p><b>API Contract Compatibility:</b> Eclipse SDK 3.2 will be upwards contract-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 3.1 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_2_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.2 Plug-in Migration Guide</em></a>. Programs that use affected APIs and extension |
| points will need to be ported to Eclipse SDK 3.2 APIs. Downward contract compatibility |
| is not supported. There is no guarantee that compliance with Eclipse SDK 3.2 |
| APIs would ensure compliance with Eclipse SDK 3.1 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 3.2 will be upwards binary-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 3.1 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_2_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.2 Plug-in Migration Guide</em></a>. Downward plug-in compatibility is not |
| supported. Plug-ins for Eclipse SDK 3.2 will not be usable in Eclipse SDK 3.1. |
| 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 3.2 will be upwards source-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 3.1 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_2_porting_guide.html" target="_top"><em>Eclipse |
| 3.2 Plug-in Migration Guide</em></a>. This means that source files written to |
| use Eclipse SDK 3.1 APIs might successfully compile and run against Eclipse |
| SDK 3.2 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 3.2 will be upwards workspace-compatible |
| with Eclipse SDK 3.1 unless noted. This means that workspaces and projects created |
| with Eclipse SDK 3.1 or 3.0 can be successfully opened by Eclipse SDK 3.2 and |
| upgraded to a 3.2 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 3.2 should provide similar upwards compatibility for their hidden and visible |
| workspace metadata created by earlier versions; 3.2 plug-in developers are responsible |
| for ensuring that their plug-ins recognize 3.1, 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 3.2 will be unusable |
| with a product based an earlier version of Eclipse. Visible metadata files created |
| (or overwritten) by Eclipse 3.2 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 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>Themes and Priorities</h2> |
| <p>The changes under consideration for the next release of Eclipse Platform, JDT, |
| and PDE will address major themes identified by the Eclipse Requirements Council |
| (Themes and Priorities dated Dec. 15, 2004 - <a href="http://www.eclipse.org/org/councils/20041215EclipseTPFinalDraft.pdf">pdf)</a>. |
| The following are especially germane to this top level project:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><strong>Scaling Up</strong> - This refers to the need for Eclipse to deal |
| with development and deployment on a larger and more complex scale. Increasing |
| complexities arise from large development teams distributed in different locations, |
| large source code bases and fragile build environments that have been developed |
| incrementally over time, the dynamic nature of new source code bases and their |
| interaction with configuration management, and build environments involving |
| many different tools and build rules.</li> |
| <li><strong>Enterprise Ready</strong> - Eclipse should be improved to allow |
| it to be better used by large development organizations.</li> |
| <li><strong>Design for Extensibility: Be a Better Platform</strong> - Within |
| the Eclipse community, many development projects are defining new development |
| platforms on top of the Eclipse Platform. The Eclipse Platform must evolve |
| to better support this type of usage, including providing new common infrastructure |
| and abstraction layers needed by upper platforms and adding APIs to expose |
| existing functionality only available internally so that upper platforms can |
| more readily integrate with and reuse what's already there.</li> |
| <li><strong>Simple to Use</strong> - |
| The Eclipse components need to not only provide the features that advanced users demand, |
| but also be something that most users find simple to use.</li> |
| <li><strong>Rich Client Platform</strong> - |
| The Eclipse RCP is a Java-based application framework for the desktop. Building on the |
| Eclipse runtime and the modular plug-in story, it is possible to build applications ranging from |
| command line tools to feature-rich applications that take full advantage of SWT's native |
| platform integration and the many other reusable components.</li> |
| <li><strong>Appealing to the Broader Community</strong> - |
| This theme includes work that grows deeper roots into the various OS-specific communities, |
| spreads Eclipse to additional operating environments, virtual machines, application |
| development and deployment lifecycles, vertical market-specific frameworks and builds |
| bridges to other open source communities.</li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>Each of the 3 projects under the Eclipse Platform top-level project is covered |
| in its own section: </p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><a href="#Platform">Eclipse Platform project</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#JDT">Java development tools (JDT) project</a></li> |
| <li><a href="#PDE">Plug-in development environment (PDE) project</a></li> |
| </ul> |
| <p>For each project, the items listed reflect new features of Eclipse 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. |
| <h2><a name="Platform">Eclipse Platform project</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.</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse Platform project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse Platform project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> revived |
| plan item) <strong>Support logical model integration.</strong> The Eclipse |
| Platform supports a strong physical view of projects containing resources |
| (files and folders) in the workspace. However, there are many situations where |
| plug-in developers would prefer to work with a logical model that is appropriate |
| to their domain. Eclipse should ease the task for plug-in developers who want |
| to make logical model-aware plug-ins. To do this, Eclipse should provide more |
| flexible mechanisms for contributing actions on models that do not have a |
| one-to-one mapping to files on the users hard disk. This would, for example, |
| allow a team provider's repository operations to be made available on logical |
| artifacts. In addition, existing views like the navigator and problems view |
| should be generalized to handle logical artifacts and, in general, there should |
| be better control over what is displayed in views and editors based on the |
| logical models that the end user is working on. [Platform Core, UI, Team] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=37723">37723</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new plan |
| item) <strong>Provide more flexible workspaces.</strong> Currently in Eclipse |
| there is a direct connection between IResources and files and directories |
| on the local file system. Eclipse should loosen this connection, by abstracting |
| out its dependency on java.io.File, and allowing for alternative implementations. |
| This would enable, for example, uses where the workspace is located on a remote |
| server, or accessed via a non-file-based API, or has a non-trivial mapping |
| between the resources and the physical layout of the files. [Platform Resources, |
| Text] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106176">106176</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility, Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve and extend the SWT widget set.</strong> Modern UI design is |
| a constantly moving target. SWT should provide the tools needed to implement |
| first class user interfaces. For example: sort indicators in SWT tables; improved |
| coolbar behavior/appearance; and new controls such as collapsible groups. |
| [SWT] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106182">106182</a>) [Theme: Design for |
| Extensibility, Appealing to the Broader Community]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Address new window system capabilities.</strong> SWT's basis in native |
| widgets is one of Eclipse's major strengths. For this to remain true, SWT |
| must continue to grow to encompass new mainstream desktop platforms and new |
| capabilities added to existing platforms. SWT should support Windows Vista, |
| and handle the GB18030-2 Chinese character set where it is supported natively. |
| [SWT] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106184">106184</a>) [Theme: Appealing |
| to the Broader Community]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Update Enhancements.</strong> As the number and range of Eclipse |
| plug-ins continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to have a powerful |
| update/install story. For instance, if more information about an Eclipse install |
| was available earlier, it would be possible to pre-validate that it would |
| be a compatible location to install particular new features and plug-ins. |
| This information could also be used to deal with conflicting contributions. |
| Update should also be improved to reduce the volume of data that is transferred |
| for a given update, and PDE should provide better tools for creating and deploying |
| updates. [Update, Platform Runtime, PDE] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106185">106185</a>) [Theme: Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Increase flexibility when building RCP applications.</strong> |
| The Eclipse text editor should better support RCP applications, by making |
| features like the following available to them: annotation presentation and |
| navigation, user assigned colors and fonts, spell checking, folding, |
| quick diff, templates, and file buffers. The Eclipse workbench layout should |
| be further opened up to allow RCP applications to have more control over its |
| presentation. More generally, the dependencies between low level |
| components, such as the extension registry and platform runtime, should be |
| reduced to allow them to be more easily reused. |
| [Platform Text, UI, Runtime] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106187">106187</a>) |
| [Theme: Rich Client Platform]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Give OSGi a first class presence on eclipse.org.</strong> Eclipse is |
| based on an efficient, highly scalable OSGi implementation, which has always |
| been usable as a standalone component. OSGi should have a first class presence |
| on eclipse.org, including making it easy for developers to reuse the Eclipse |
| OSGi implementation in their own applications. To support this, a separate |
| OSGi download should be provided, as is done for SWT. [Platform Core] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106188">106188</a>) [Theme: Appealing to the Broader Community, Rich Client |
| Platform]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Provide a more customizable UI.</strong> Products often need direct |
| control over the presence and arrangement of UI elements. Similarly, end users |
| expect to be able to customize the UI to better match their workflow. Eclipse |
| should enable both products and end users to have more control over the user |
| interface. For example, better control over the presence and ordering of menu |
| and toolbar items should be provided. Similarly, the workbench layout should |
| be made more flexible and configurable. [Platform UI] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106189">106189</a>) [Theme: Simple to Use]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> revived) |
| <strong>Capabilities/Perspectives/Components.</strong> The UI component has |
| several frameworks for customizing the presentation, filtering the set of |
| available options and supporting task-based UIs tailored to the user's role. |
| This support should be simplified and made more flexible. [Platform UI] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=80130">80130</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Provide more support for large scale workspaces.</strong> In some |
| situations, users have workspaces containing hundreds of projects and hundreds |
| of thousands of files. Scoped builds and working sets have become important |
| tools for these users, and the performance optimizations done in Eclipse 3.1 |
| have proven helpful. Eclipse should have even more support for dealing with |
| very large workspaces, including improved searching, filtering, working sets, |
| and bookmarks. This goes hand-in-hand with ongoing work to discover and address |
| performance issues. [Platform UI, Resources] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106192">106192</a>) [Theme: Scaling Up, Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve |
| serviceability.</strong> When an end user encounters a problem with Eclipse, |
| it is important for support teams to be able to diagnose the root cause of |
| the failure, and identify the failing plug-in. Eclipse should have enhanced |
| error reporting tools that make it easy for end users to report problems. |
| Tools should be available at all times, so that knowledgeable users could |
| diagnose unexpected behavior such as slowdowns or exceptional memory use. |
| [Platform Runtime, UI, SWT] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106193">106193</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use, Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> revived) |
| <strong>Embedding editors and views.</strong> Various problems are encountered |
| when trying to embed editors or views within other workbench parts. For example, |
| the current compare infrastructure requires creating a separate text editor |
| for viewing changes between files. This is due to a limitation in the workbench |
| that prevents editors from being embedded inside views or other controls. |
| As a consequence, the compare editor's nested editors don't support the full |
| set of features provided by the corresponding real content-type-specific editor. |
| This represents a major usability problem: the user must switch to the real |
| editor to make changes and then return to the compare view to review the changes. |
| Eclipse should be more flexible in the ways various editors can be used and |
| reused. The UI component model should be improved to support nesting of workbench |
| parts, and reduce the coupling of parts to particular locations in the workbench, |
| allowing for more flexible UI configurations. [Platform UI, Compare, Platform |
| Text] (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=71125">71125</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility] |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Enhance the text editor.</strong> The Eclipse Text component provides |
| a powerful editing framework that is useful in many contexts, but some of |
| its capabilities are currently only available in the Java editor. The Java |
| editor should be opened up to allow more general access to the reconciling, |
| code assist, and template proposal mechanisms. Other enhancements to the look |
| and feel of the editor should also be considered in areas such as the Find/Replace |
| dialog, showing change history and comments in the editor, and annotation |
| roll-overs. [Platform Text] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106194">106194</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility] |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve cheat sheet support.</strong> |
| The Eclipse cheat sheet infrastructure was implemented 3.0, |
| but is still not widely used. For cheat sheets to be become |
| more widely adopted, the base support should be |
| enhanced in several ways, including: allowing cheat sheets to be |
| authored by non-developers (i.e. creating steps and registering a cheat |
| sheet with no programming); defining and using new automation APIs |
| to allow UI parts like dialogs and wizards to be opened and filled in; |
| and reworking the implementation to support a single content delivery |
| mechanism. |
| [Help, UI] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106196">106196</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use, Design for Extensibility]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Provide pervasive user-assistance search capabilities.</strong> An |
| important element of the user-assistance support in Eclipse is the federated |
| help search support that was added in R3.1. This support should be expanded |
| to pull in more useful results from various sources. It should also be made |
| more extensible to assist other information contributors, and made more pervasive |
| in the UI. [Help, UI] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106198">106198</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve task assistance in text fields.</strong> |
| Eclipse has numerous wizards and dialogs that contain text fields |
| where there are constraints on the values that can be entered, and often |
| task assistance can be provided, for example, in the form of potential values. |
| Eclipse should provide an enhanced text field that has indicators for |
| required fields, and content assist. |
| [Help, UI] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106199">106199</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Provide a single user-assistance content delivery mechanism.</strong> |
| In Eclipse 3.1, three different user-assistance vehicles are |
| used to help users in various contexts: |
| the initial user experience shows the 'Welcome' content; |
| cheat sheets assist during long tasks; Help shows the traditional help |
| topics. These vehicles use similar concepts but have separate/duplicate |
| code bases. They should be reworked so that a single content delivery |
| mechanism is used in various contexts, allowing content producers to |
| benefit from a single way of contributing content, making all the |
| content searchable, and making it presentable in various contexts. This |
| should also take into account whether content is local or remote. |
| [Help] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106200">106200</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Separate information content from presentation.</strong> |
| In previous releases, Eclipse Help manipulated content as a reference. |
| Although the representation is simple and reliable, it is difficult to |
| tailor the content for multiple presentations, or to provide incremental |
| content contributions, content reuse, content filtering etc. |
| The representation for help content should be improved. |
| Also, branding information should be separated from the rest of the content |
| to simplify aggregating multiple contributions into larger units. |
| [Help, UI, Core, Install/Update] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106201">106201</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve UI Forms.</strong> |
| UI Forms are increasingly being used in the Eclipse user interface. |
| The UI Form support should be improved to allow for more pervasive use |
| in 3.2. Critical widget functionality should be moved to SWT |
| to ensure quality and native look and feel. The remaining UI Forms code |
| (minus FormEditor) should be pushed down into JFace so that it is available |
| in the Eclipse workbench. |
| [SWT, UI, Help] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106203">106203</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use, Design for Extensibility]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Enhance the debug platform.</strong> The debug support in Eclipse |
| is increasingly being used in areas that require more flexible mechanisms |
| than those required by simple Java programs. Potential work areas include: |
| the integration of flow control, async/cancellation into debug APIs; update |
| policies in debug views (i.e. ensure view updates before proceeding vs. let |
| debugger go as fast as it can and let the views catch up); a flexible debug |
| model element hierarchy to account for different architectures such as multi-core |
| processors, thousands of threads, etc; and introduction of table trees in |
| standard debug views for better/flexible presentation. [Debug] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106205">106205</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility, Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse Platform project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse Platform project.)</p> |
| <h2><a name="JDT">Java development tools (JDT) project</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.</p> |
| <h4>Committed Items (Eclipse JDT project,)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse JDT project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Add support for Java SE 6 features.</strong> |
| Java SE 6 (aka "Mustang") will likely contain improvements to javadoc tags |
| (like @category), classfile specification updates, pluggable annotation |
| processing APIs, and new compiler APIs, all of which will require specific |
| support. |
| [JDT Core, JDT UI, JDT Text, JDT Debug] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106206">106206</a>) |
| [Theme: Appealing to the Broader Community]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve refactoring.</strong> Refactoring currently relies on a closed |
| world assumption. This means that all of the code to be refactored must be |
| available in the workspace when the refactoring is triggered. However for |
| large distributed teams, the closed world approach isn't really feasible. |
| The same is true for clients which use binary versions of libraries where |
| API changes from one version to another. In 3.2 the closed world assumptions |
| will be relaxed in such a way that a refactoring executed in workspace A can |
| be "reapplied" on workspace B to refactor any remaining references to the |
| refactored element. Furthermore, existing refactorings will be improved to |
| preserve API compatibility where possible (for example when renaming a method, |
| a deprecated stub with the old signature will be generated that forwards to |
| the new method). [JDT Core/UI] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106207">106207</a>) |
| [Theme: Scaling Up].</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> revived) |
| <strong>Implement library projects.</strong> For plug-in development, PDE |
| distinguishes between the plug-in projects you are working on (source plug-in |
| projects) and plug-in projects you are working with but not actually changing |
| (binary plug-in projects). Making this distinction affords the user the benefits |
| of having full source for everything in their workspace where it's easily |
| browsed and searched, while permitting economies because the latter kind of |
| projects do not actually have to be (re)compiled. This work item is to support |
| a similar notion of library project for Java development in general. The user |
| should be able to flag a Java project as a library project; JDT would then |
| know how to present library projects appropriately at the UI, and how to deal |
| with them more efficiently using generated binaries. [JDT Core, JDT UI, PDE] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=80162">80162</a>) |
| [Theme: Design for Extensibility]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve |
| NLS tooling.</strong> The Eclipse NLS tooling should better support the the |
| new Eclipse string externalization pattern added in 3.1, along with ways to |
| help developers with unused keys and unused property file entries. [JDT Text] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106210">106210</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to use, Scaling up]</p> |
| |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse JDT project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <p>(End of items for Eclipse JDT project.) |
| <h2><a name="PDE">Plug-in development environment (PDE) project</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 project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Proposed Items (Eclipse PDE project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve target support.</strong> |
| PDE manages a model of the target Eclipse for which you are |
| developing. Targets may be complex and diverse, and |
| switching targets or launch configurations can be expensive. |
| PDE should be extended to support named targets and automatically |
| track changes to the workspace. |
| [PDE, Core] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106211">106211</a>) |
| [Theme: Simple to Use, Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>New source lookup for debugging Eclipse applications.</strong> The |
| default source lookup mechanism for debugging Java applications has scalability |
| issues since the debugger may needing to scan a list of hundreds of plug-in |
| projects each time it look up a source file. PDE should provide its own source |
| path computer to which the debugger can delegate the task of locating source |
| files. In addition to faster lookups, the PDE-based approach will be better |
| positioned to handle duplicate source files on the same source path. It would |
| also allow the user to easily debug plug-ins against different targets without |
| having to change the Target Platform in the preferences. [PDE, Debug, Core] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106212">106212</a>) |
| [Theme: Scaling Up]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>API-aware tools.</strong> Given the importance that the Eclipse community |
| places on stable, robust APIs, having good support for their implementation |
| is critical. The support within Eclipse for describing APIs should be improved, |
| along with better tools from assisting developers to stick to APIs provided |
| by other plug-ins. [PDE, JDT] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106213">106213</a>) |
| [Theme: Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| <p>(<img border="0" src="new.gif" alt="(new)" width="12" height="12"> new) <strong>Improve PDE build.</strong> PDE Build is fundamental to how the Eclipse |
| Platform releases are produced. It is also increasingly being used by other |
| Eclipse projects and in the wider community. Potential improvements to PDE |
| build include parallel cross-building, incremental building of plug-ins, increased |
| integration with the workspace model, and support for additional repository |
| providers. [PDE] |
| (<a href="https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=106214">106214</a>) |
| 106214[Theme: Enterprise Ready]</p> |
| |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>Deferred Items (Eclipse PDE project)</h4> |
| <blockquote> |
| <p><i>None at this time.</i></p> |
| </blockquote> |
| <h4>(End of items for Eclipse PDE project.)</h4> |
| </body> |
| |
| </html> |