On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Ramesh Reddy
<rareddy@redhat.com> wrote:
On Sun, 2009-10-25 at 01:41 -0500, Sanjay Chaudhuri wrote:
> No; I was suggesting to use the existing sheet-tab properties editor
> infrastructure of eclipse. If you install the WTP SDK and try opening
> any .xsd file, you will see some of the different things that can be
> done on the Properties view. Normally it should automatically open up;
> else you may use Windows -> Show View -> Properties. Since ra.xml
> needs an editor, potentially we can extend the existing XML editor and
> also enhance it for being able to address any changes made through the
> xml editor also and be able to generate get/set as mentioned by
> Ramesh. So users may decide to directly change the xml using the xml
> editor or use the properties view. Enhancing the XML editor can also
> get fancy by content-assist, problem-markers etc. and potentially this
> can be renamed as a specific editor, similar to the plugin manifest
> editor, which knows how to handle called plugin.xml
>
I would not make this too complicated. If we want we can make the
"ra.xml" editor as read-only. I am interested only on adding and
managing the custom properties. Rest of the ra.xml we can fill
automatically.
Sanjay>> If UI needs to be done, I guess the efforts are same other than little more wiring. And if you are interested only in pure propeties, then using the existing basic properties editor would be the minimal effort rather than designing all the views. You can look at Windows -> Show View -> Properties View in eclipse to see if that would be enough to satisfy the use-cases; it's a simple table with key/value where values can be chosen from choices if desired.
> I am not sure if the current structure of ra.xml is complete; however
> based on what I see, some meaningful tab segregations can be done;
> Ramesh would be a better person to dictate how he would want to group
> the sections.
>
ra.xml is defined by the JCA spec, it is complete. Since we are
targeting properties, IMO we provide way to manage those, that is
sufficient. If user edits the ra.xml out of this editor, next time we
load the file they should reflect in the editor.
Sanjay>> Basic properties editor does not have the sheet-tab view. So if basic key/value pair is enough, then we can stick to the basic one as I mentioned above.