9:43 p.m.
Greetings,
At the JBoss f2f last week in Brno there was a meeting to discuss the ease of
installation
issue (or lack thereof) of integration stack components. Presented here is a summary
of the
issue and a proposed solution as drafted by the team. Although members of platform
architecture,
engineering, PM and QE were present - the solution is simply proposed at this time. We
also
plan to evolve the solution over time - so that the issue will be addressed more
fully.
Your comments are welcome!
Thanks,
--paull
------
Issue: Finding integration stack components to install is too difficult. This was
made
clear by Fuse Tooling usability reviews and is discussed in detail here:
https://mojo.redhat.com/docs/DOC-977658
Proposed Solution:
- Extend Eclipse Marketplace by enabling JBTIS/ JBDSIS entries for product groupings
and establish
JBTIS/ JBDSIS installers based on JBT/ JBDS.
Discussion:
As it exists today, users who search within the standard Eclipse Marketplace for
keywords
such as "Camel Editor" or "Fuse" are directed to the JBDS or JBT
Kepler installers. Users
must select the "more info" link on the Marketplace installer page and then
page down to
find this text:
"Also available is the JBoss Developer Studio Integration Stack, which includes
support for SwitchYard, Camel, Fuse, Fabric8, Drools, jBPM, ModeShape, Teiid and more. It
is available from within JBoss Central, via the Software/update tab."
This is the first mention of Fuse and directs the user to install JBDS (or JBT) and
then,
after installing/ restarting and as a separate action, use the Software/Update tab
within
JBoss Central to find the Fuse tooling. In this case Fuse is part of:
"JBoss Integration and SOA Development" - (The category description does
mention Fuse.)
Solution Details:
The extended IS-aware Eclipse Marketplace entries will reference the existing update
site
and when selecting "Install" you will get a yet-to-be-defined subset of the
Eclipse features that
will match what you would get when using the install from JBoss Central today - but
without having
to install Developer Studio plugins separately first.
The installer option is to be based on the JBDS installer and will be made available
from the CSP/jboss.org
download next to the existing installer.
JBDS 7.1.1.GA/JBDSIS 7.1.0.GA (Kepler) - What can we do today?
- https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBTIS-354
The least required changes would leave the user with a single JBDSIS installer and
a single
JBTIS installer when searching for "Fuse" or "Data
Virtualization" for example. Upon selecting
one of these installers the user would see all available installation-units
(features) available
in the combined integration stack. Users could then select all or just the fuse
tooling IUs.
This is the "laundry list" approach.
JBDS 8.1.0.GA/JBDSIS 8.0.x.GA (Luna) - Short term for upcoming tooling releases.
- https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBTIS-355
* Add a new com.jboss.devstudio.core.central.feature that packages up the
com.jboss.devstudio.core.central
plugin and include this in com.jboss.devstudio.core.feature (this is missing
today).
* Enable usage tracking in JBTIS components' MANIFEST.MF files (this is under
way now)
- https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBTIS-290
* create three connectors, each based on the content in JBDSIS discovery
plugin.xml's top three
connector categories
- https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBTIS-357
1. Fuse ServiceWorks - ref: JBoss Integration and SOA Development
2. BRMS/BPMS - ref: JBoss Business Process and Rules Development
3. JBoss Data Virtualization - ref: JBoss Data Virtualization Development
** A1: PMs (hey Alan) must come up with appropriate names for 1-3 above. The
naming convention should be
"compatible" with a Mobile tools install that have been requested
too.
The user searches for "Fuse" from Marketplace and immediately finds
JBDSIS. The installer allows
the user to select from 1-3 above. The user selects "Fuse ServiceWorks"
(if that's the name) by
selecting the radio button (or selects all easily).
JBDS 9.0.0.GA/JBDSIS 9.0.x.GA (Mars) - Make it better - continue to evolve the
solution
- https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBTIS-356/
https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBIDE-18734
Refactor project examples in Central to remove dependencies on portal & seam
(size reduction - avoid
installing unnecessary plugins).
Similar experience to Luna except the installer is much leaner.
No default perspective change - potential stretch goal.
This subject went back and forth. The user has an established perspective when they
began the installation
process and may be installing multiple features which may very well have different
default perspectives.
Once users manually set their perspective it will be remembered the next time they
start the tool.
Alternatively, the installer option definitely should be able to do this. When
installing into an existing
Eclipse that is not that trivial, which is one of the reasons why JBoss Central
exists. Central shows
up across perspectives and when the user selects Fuse the Fuse project can declare it
and would ask users
if they want to move to the Fuse perspective.
We could also look into adding "roles" to Central to make it adopt better
depending on what interest you
have as a user.
--paull