What you'd like to see in q4e 1.0.0

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

Hi everyone!

Q for Eclipse has been evolving during the past months and adding new features each time. I would say that the most remarkable features came from the community... so I would like to use the community knowledge and imagination to ask:

What features would you like to see in q4e 1.0.0?

There's only one condition: Make sure your feature is not already implemented in the 0.7.0 development branch[1].

[1] New and Noteworthy in 0.7.0 (work in progress): http://code.google.com/p/q4e/wiki/New_in_0_7_0 

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Marcelo Alcantara]

Hi Abel,

I woud like to see some integration between Maven and Eclipse RCP/Plugins.

My 2 cents.

Marcelo

--
Marcelo Alcantara
Senior Developer/Architect
--------------------------------------------------------
mar...@gmail.com
+55 11 81968823

[Josh Suereth]

I second that opinion.

I'd love to see integration with the maven osgi plugin and some way to integrate pom.xml and plugin.xml/manifest.mf.  Also, the ability to depend on eclipse plugins from a maven-like repository (or treat your eclipse install as a maven repository).  The problem there is although most of the version information is in the jar for OSGi, it's doesn't quite match Maven.  However, it would be nice if I could make use of all tha amazing features of maven/q4e when developing RCP apps.

-Josh

[erle mantos]

For v1.0.0, I would love to see our artifact search integrated with
repository managers
like archiva, etc ..

Also, the form-based POM editor ala Manifest editor of eclipse.

--
A world without C++ is chaos.

[Allan Ramirez]

Mine is just simple and easy. I would like to see keyboard shortcuts on
commonly used stuffs to be implemented in q4e. Developers are more on
keyboards rather than on mouse for faster development. I think it's
convenient and faster for developers to just press a shortcut key in
executing a maven goal rather than going to maven menu and choose.

[Robert Dale]

As long as mvn clean != Project -> Clean, I'd like to see 'clean' on
the context menu. Project -> Clean seems to clean only classes and
test-classes. In the case of war and ear packaging, they use build
directories which do not get cleaned. So if a dependency or some file
is removed, it still exists in the build directory and will get
repackaged. A proper clean has to be run by going to execute goal.

--
Robert Dale

[Rodrigo Ruiz]

Hi all,

Here are my two cents:

* Search integrated with Nexus
* Integration of some commonly used eclipse plugins on project import/
update: checkstyle-cs, PMD, findbugs, cobertura, etc. Maybe as
optional extensions, just like the dependency viewer.
* Maven suggestions also for site.xml files (for skin selection)
* wysiwyg editor for apt documents :-D

Cheers

[Stefano Bagnara]

> What features would you like to see in q4e 1.0.0?

Being able to import a multimodule project in a single eclipse
project.
I know that this could have issues when there are weird dependencies
in the modules and also that it won't provide good isolation between
the modules, but I find *very* annoying when I checkout code I use for
reference and not for developing to have to allocate dozen projects to
it and not be able to use a single project like I do with m2eclipse.

This is the only motivation I keep using both q4e and m2eclipse at the
same time.

[Abel Muiño]

If that's mainly for having code reference, why is the source attachment for dependencies not good enough for your needs?

--
Abel Muiño - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com/

[Stefano Bagnara]

On May 9, 6:36 pm, "Abel Muiño" <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If that's mainly for having code reference, why is the source attachment for
> dependencies not good enough for your needs?

Mainly is not always... sometimes I find bugs in code I depend upon
and I need a smart way to change some code and to run my tests.
I find it frustrating to have to import projects having 50 sub modules
as 50 separate projects in eclipse just because I have to understand
where a bug can be, add some logs to a third party project and run my
own project tests to see what happens, and reiterate this.

E.g: apache camel have 46 modules only for its components, activemq 25
modules. They are dependencies for me, I'm not a developer, but I
often need to debug them. It is MUCH easier to use m2eclipse than q4e
for my workflow.

With m2eclipse I simply checkout the project from my svn view, right
click on the project "enable "maven 2" => "Enable" and the "Update
source folder" and in few minutes everything is ready to be run. one
click I close it, one click I open it. With q4e this is a PITA, maybe
it's me not understanding well q4e multiproject import.
OTOH I really like q4e for single module projects or for my main
projects where I'm fine with 1 project for each module.

[Carlos Sanchez]

just as a suggestion, it's not the solution you're looking for but may help.
If debugging you find the code that you need to change you can click
the "Link with Editor" in the "Package Explorer" view and that will
tell you which jar (module) the code is in, and then you only need to
checkout that portion.
Other option to not even having to checkout is creating the classes in
your project with same name and package that in the library and
Eclipse will pick them up first because the order in the classpath

--
I could give you my word as a Spaniard.
No good. I've known too many Spaniards.
-- The Princess Bride

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

Could you give some more detail on this?

Maybe with some examples of what you would like to do with q4e it would be clearer.

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

This idea of resolving maven artifacts to eclipse bundles is certainly interesting. It would be a challenge to properly resolve the dependencies (specially when using packages instead of bundles).

I don't know if that would be doable in the near future (looks more like a research project), but I think that eclipse bundles had been uploaded to the maven repository already.

Also, there are some maven plug-ins for OSGi development that could be used for building eclipse plug-ins with maven.

So, some of the pieces are there already. Could you provide examples of what kind of features you'll want to use, and how, to develop RCP apps with q4e and maven?

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

I think it should be easy to mvn clean on project clean (we might even be able to do it in both directions, if that makes any sense). But I couldn't find any open issue for this.

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

Hi!

El 09/05/2008, a las 17:49, Rodrigo Ruiz escribió:

Hi all,

Here are my two cents:

* Search integrated with Nexus

Closer that you think. The open search framework on the 0.7.0 can read nexus indexes, and (by default) downloads the one on the central repo. It is not yet integrated with every search feature, but we're on it.

* Integration of some commonly used eclipse plugins on project import/

update: checkstyle-cs, PMD, findbugs, cobertura, etc. Maybe as

optional extensions, just like the dependency viewer.

I would ask for more information here... what do you mean by "on project import/update". What kind of integration? (those tools already provide they own eclipse plug-in)

* Maven suggestions also for site.xml files (for skin selection)

* wysiwyg editor for apt documents :-D

Cheers

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

Thanks everyone for the suggestion.

I've collected everyone and placed them on the wiki (it's a shame that google won't let you edit the wiki directly).

The url is: http://code.google.com/p/q4e/wiki/Features_for_1_0_0

... and is also on the main page for easy clicking.

If I forgot anything, let me know.

Keep the ideas coming!

BTW: There's a similar topic on the IAM newsgroup. However, releasing version 1.0.0 of an eclipse plug-in would mean that we've graduated from the incubator, which can not happen until (at least) Eclipse 3.5 (3.4 is coming out in a few months). So you can use your imagination... big time.

IAM newsgroup is at: http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/iam/

Ask for a password here: http://www.eclipse.org/newsgroups/register.php

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[podenski]

User menu additions
Currently you can run any goal by selecting the Execute Goal menu
item. It would be nice for the standard lifecycle goals to be
available for selection here instead of having to know them and type
the goal name correctly. Also, instead of having to type a goal (and
possibly related properties) each time it would be nice to be able to
save user-assigned menu items to rerun goals.

On May 9, 2:20 pm, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks everyone for the suggestion.
>
> I've collected everyone and placed them on the wiki (it's a shame
> that google won't let you edit the wiki directly).
>
> The url is:http://code.google.com/p/q4e/wiki/Features_for_1_0_0
> ... and is also on the main page for easy clicking.
>
> If I forgot anything, let me know.
>
> Keep the ideas coming!
>
> BTW: There's a similar topic on the IAM newsgroup. However, releasing
> version 1.0.0 of an eclipse plug-in would mean that we've graduated
> from the incubator, which can not happen until (at least) Eclipse 3.5
> (3.4 is coming out in a few months). So you can use your
> imagination... big time.
>
> IAM newsgroup is at:http://www.eclipse.org/proposals/iam/
> Ask for a password here:http://www.eclipse.org/newsgroups/register.php
>
> --

> Abel Muiño Vizcaino -http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

El 10/05/2008, a las 9:01, podenski escribió:

Also, instead of having to type a goal (and

possibly related properties) each time it would be nice to be able to

save user-assigned menu items to rerun goals.

This is already possible if you create a Run configuration (Run > Open Run dialog... > Maven2 > (right-click) > New) which is probably the "eclipse way" of doing it. You can then mark this configuration as a Favorite so it is always on the Run button menu.

I feel like the menu item is kind of re-implementing this, so I'm more on removing it than enhancing it... but you (the community) will tell us what to do!

[podenski]

Gosh I guess that I missed that one!

I tried creating a run configuration which specified project 'A' and
then I was able to select from the Run As Maven contextual menu and
select a run configuration for project 'B' -- a new launch
configuration was automatically created for project 'B' with the same
goal.

Based on the capability mentioned above it seems like the contextual
menu does add some additional capability so I would vote to keep it.

Also I still think that it would be nice for the standard lifecycle

goals to be available for selection here instead of having to know
them and type the goal name correctly.

[Rodrigo Ruiz]

Hi Abel, see my comments in-line...

On May 9, 10:41 pm, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> El 09/05/2008, a las 17:49, Rodrigo Ruiz escribió:
>
>
>
> > Hi all,
>
> > Here are my two cents:
>
> > * Search integrated with Nexus
>
> Closer that you think. The open search framework on the 0.7.0 can
> read nexus indexes, and (by default) downloads the one on the central
> repo. It is not yet integrated with every search feature, but we're
> on it.

Cool! It's good to know :-)

>
> > * Integration of some commonly used eclipse plugins on project import/
> > update: checkstyle-cs, PMD, findbugs, cobertura, etc. Maybe as
> > optional extensions, just like the dependency viewer.
>
> I would ask for more information here... what do you mean by "on
> project import/update". What kind of integration? (those tools
> already provide they own eclipse plug-in)

I ment integration with those eclipse plug-ins. For example, every
time I import a Maven project into my Eclipse, I have to manually edit
the project properties for setting the checkstyle plugin
configuration. It would be great if the importer could use the
information in pom.xml and configure the resulting project plugin
details accordingly.

>
> > * Maven suggestions also for site.xml files (for skin selection)
> > * wysiwyg editor for apt documents :-D
>
> > Cheers
>
> --
> Abel Muiño Vizcaino -http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

Regards

--
Rodrigo Ruiz

[podenski]

Show multi-module relationships

This proposed feature is in keeping with the goal of providing a more
visual nature for Maven users in Eclipse.

Similar to View Dependencies, this feature would produce a graphical
representation of the relationship between modules in a multi-module
build. This feature would help developers to quickly understand the
relationships involved in a multi-module build (dependency,
inheritance and aggregation).

For an example of the general nature of the graphical representation,
please consult the article referenced below, which summarizes the
graphical notation in Figure 7 -- A relationship graph. The graph
includes relationships for 'depends on', 'inherits from' and
'aggregates'.

Note that this graph would only need to show module dependencies,
since the existing View Dependencies already has addressed the general
artifact dependency graph.

The Maven 2 POM demystified

<http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-05-2006/jw-0529-maven.html>

This feature would be particularly useful for someone examining a
multi-module project build produced by others, because it would
quickly summarize all of the relationships in a single graphical view.


On May 11, 12:01 am, Rodrigo Ruiz <rodrigo.ruiz.agu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Stefano Bagnara]

Here is another list of issues related to the multimodule import:

- When I run refactorings involving minor changes in all of the
modules-projects Eclipse will do 1 commit for each module. So, first,
it seems my commit is no more atomic.

- When I move/copy code between different modules-project eclipse does
not correctly handle the svn cp/rm stuff to preserve my history.

- Opening and closing my 20 modules project imported with q4e takes
almost 5 minutes (it keeps updating classpath and similar things)
while the same on m2eclipse take 10 seconds.

- Running the import of a multimodule already on my disk use the
module artifactId as eclipse project identifier. Sometimes artifactId
are identical in different projects. I found no way to tell q4e to use
groupId+artifactId or to use a prefix when importing a multimodule
project.

Stefano

[pretonik]

any check option to eliminate project relations. If I'm working on a
project development I want to take into account only this project
souce classes, and not to have other projects related. The other
project classes used by my project should be imported by a maven
dependency (I guess this is the sense of maven!!!). I think it's a big
mistake to allow other project to be related. If any one wants it,
maybe should be checked as an option, but by default it should be
erased!

On 9 mayo, 00:40, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> Q for Eclipse has been evolving during the past months and adding new
> features each time. I would say that the most remarkable features
> came from the community... so I would like to use the community
> knowledge and imagination to ask:
>
> What features would you like to see in q4e 1.0.0?
>
> There's only one condition: Make sure your feature is not already
> implemented in the 0.7.0 development branch[1].
>
> [1] New and Noteworthy in 0.7.0 (work in progress): http://
> code.google.com/p/q4e/wiki/New_in_0_7_0

[Darren Hartford]

More as a comment than a specific feature, is simply
to try to have Q4E be as simple as possible when
initially installed for Maven integration with
Eclipse, with the primary piece being the dependency
management.

To be more specific, if the default install of the Q4E
plugin is as non-invasive and do it's best to not
'lock up eclipse' (i.e. the repo indexing and
occasionally dependency resolution), this will make it
easier to adopt and can use more advanced features
when required/explicitly enabled -- this will also
make it more clear to un-educated users that you have
to turn on a specific feature that may hurt your IDE
performance working on a project; they know the impact
instead of just complaining about the plugin ;-)

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

I'd rather diagnose and fix the causes of any complains than avoid them by disabling functionality.

Regarding the "project relations", they are dependencies resolved from the workspace. That essentially saves you the extra step of "mvn install" a project before you can use/test any change made to it.

There's an interesting conversation going on on this other thread: http://tinyurl.com/528hpr

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Patrick Crocker]

I know you can create a new Maven project through:
File -> New -> Project -> Maven 2 Project -> Maven 2 Project Creation Wizard

My 1.0.0 request is in regards to enabling maven on existing Java/WTP projects.

It would be nice if there was a "Maven 2 POM Creation Wizard" for
creating an initial pom.xml file:
File -> New -> Other -> Maven 2 Project -> Maven 2 POM Creation Wizard

Additionally, the "Maven 2" context menu (in Package Explorer) is not
available unless the project has a pom.xml file. It would be nice if
the "Maven 2" context menu was available with the "Maven 2 POM
Creation Wizard" as an option (the only option?).

For exiting Q4E users these features are not a must, but I believe
that new users will find this a more intuitive way to add Maven
support to existing Java projects.

Thank you,

- Patrick Crocker.

[marco.madrid]

I'm agree with Darren Hartford, so I think Q4E by now is extending
(modifying) the default maven behaviours (that we expect to get),
causing unexpected troubles in basic maven tasks (like deploy).
I also think that the q4e capabilities should never interfere with
default maven behaviours, so I thinks it's a good idea to allow "pure
maven users" to simply use the "maven dependency management" support
and, if you need/want to use q4e + eclipse features, you must active
them (assuming that now the control is on Q4E side, not only on maven
side).
what do you think about it?

On Jun 12, 11:35 pm, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'd rather diagnose and fix the causes of any complains than avoid
> them by disabling functionality.
>
> Regarding the "project relations", they are dependencies resolved
> from the workspace. That essentially saves you the extra step of "mvn
> install" a project before you can use/test any change made to it.
>
> There's an interesting conversation going on on this other thread: http://tinyurl.com/528hpr
> --

> Abel Muiño Vizcaino -http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Darren Hartford]

Heh, I like Marco's view from a 'pure maven' approach,
but I'm thinking more from the business developer (a
'user') standpoint where they don't care about Maven:

*they just want the needed libraries on the classpath
to write their code. (this includes the easy way to
add dependencies...the indexing the repo challenges
crop up here).

*if they need to handle multi-project dependencies do
a local-install from one project to test the change on
a different project that is dependent on it.

*run the tests the same as it would elsewhere (i.e. a
continuous integration server would run the tests
through maven, so they can run their tests through
maven if they want...but will likely just use Eclipse
Junit or TestNG plugin anyway).

So, you can see, not a lot of mavenism's from the
business developer/user standpoint, just Maven taking
care of things for them as the user.

Going back to Marco's viewpoint, using some of the
cooler features like 'Analyze Dependencies' and
pom.xml checking are great for the Maven-specific
users, I just want to make sure the 'business
developer', the lowest common denominator user,
doesn't get frustrated ;-)

-D

[KC Baltz]

I'd like to see Q4E disturb the layout and formatting of our POM files
as little as possible when it edits them. Right now, it completely
rearranges my POM files so I don't use it to automatically edit
dependencies.

K.C.

[gilbertoca]

Is there any possibility to make q4e more intuitive? Like this:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/gilbertoca/SFkNNKuHiPI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/6HH-OpALQHQ/rep-3302.png?imgmax=512

This one is what we see right now in eclipse:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/gilbertoca/SFkNNcMjxyI/AAAAAAAAAEY/5hSopeN-DLs/rep-3303.png?imgmax=512

I think one picture talks more than words!

Gilberto

[gilbertoca]

Here, for me the image was not good.
Maybe this one is better: http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rep3302qv2.png

On Jun 18, 10:31 am, gilbertoca <gilbert...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there any possibility to make q4e more intuitive? Like this:http://lh5.ggpht.com/gilbertoca/SFkNNKuHiPI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/6HH-OpALQHQ/r...
>
> This one is what we see right now in eclipse:http://lh6.ggpht.com/gilbertoca/SFkNNcMjxyI/AAAAAAAAAEY/5hSopeN-DLs/r...

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

Not sure of what you mean... making Eclipse(JDT/WTP look like Netbeans is not in the scope of q4e :-).

There's room for better usability through a Maven perspective and/or Maven Explorer view, so could you describe specific enhancements? 

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

We're actually working on improving this.

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Darren Hartford]

General technical question -
If I see some behavior that I do not like, such as
seeing Eclipse lock up waiting for a UI thread to
release, is there some way to turn on debugging so I
can see if it's Q4E, specifically which part, or if it
is something else?

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

I've updated the information at http://code.google.com/p/q4e/wiki/Debugging 

It is targeted at developers, but can also be used to launch Eclipse from the command line and have traces printed to the OS  shell console.

You'll need to start eclipse with -debug <tracefile.properties>. The <tracefile.properties> contains the traces that need to be printed to standard output.

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[KC Baltz]

What I took from Gilberto's picture was all the special "nodes" in the
tree provided for the maven project. Right now, src/main/java and src/
test/java are top-level and easy to find and identify. However, src/
main/resources and src/test/resources are buried under /src and not
obvious. I've often wished that the resource folders were top-level
as well as src/main/webapp.

K.C.

On Jun 19, 3:05 am, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Not sure of what you mean... making Eclipse(JDT/WTP look like  
> Netbeans is not in the scope of q4e :-).
>
> There's room for better usability through a Maven perspective and/or  
> Maven Explorer view, so could you describe specific enhancements?
>
> --

> Abel Muiño Vizcaino -http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

Is there an issue for that feature?

In the JDT we can mark them as source folders (so they show with the java folders) but exclude their contents so everything continues to work.

I personally find that more confusing (resources are marked as source folders, but then ignored... leading to non-intuitive errors), but you (all of you) will show us the way.

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[KC Baltz]

What do you mean, "ignored"? Changes to files in those folders are
still reflected at runtime, right?

The motivation is a convenience thing, trying to avoid a lot of
drilldown. And I like having it be visible and obvious what's on the
classpath.

K.C.

On Jun 19, 2:29 pm, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there an issue for that feature?
> In the JDT we can mark them as source folders (so they show with the  
> java folders) but exclude their contents so everything continues to  
> work.
>
> I personally find that more confusing (resources are marked as source  
> folders, but then ignored... leading to non-intuitive errors), but  
> you (all of you) will show us the way.
> --

> Abel Muiño Vizcaino -http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com

[Abel Muiño]

When I wrote "ignored" I was thinking from the eclipse user perspective, who expects everything on the classpath to be copied by Eclipse. Maven would still copy them, but some discrepancies between the Eclipse behavior and the Maven one can show up.

I'd rather provide a "maven explorer view" as a better long term solution, since we can provide more features that way, but if anyone feels like contributing a preference toggle for this behavior, it would be also welcome!

--
Abel Muiño - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com/

[Darren Hartford]

I've slightly modified what was described in the wiki to follow http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/platform-core/documents/3.1/debug.html and debug while running a project instead of as a plugin-debugger.

eclipse.exe -debug c:\eclipse\iam.debug

iam.debug file (equivalent to a .options file)
=================
# Debugging options for the Q4E/IAM plugin

# Global trace switch for this plug-in. This option must be enabled if tracing this plug-in is desired.
org.devzuz.q.maven.jdt.core/debug = true

# Trace for events related to the resource listener.
org.devzuz.q.maven.jdt.core/debug/jdtResourceListener = true

# Trace for events related to classpath updates.
org.devzuz.q.maven.jdt.core/debug/classpathUpdate = true

# This switch enables/disables time information in every other trace.
org.devzuz.q.maven.jdt.core/debug/timing = true
=================

Since it doesn't look like I can update the Wiki, if someone could so others can take advantage of this approach.

-D

--- On Thu, 6/19/08, Abel Muiño Vizcaino <amu...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Abel Muiño Vizcaino]

I've updated the information. Thanks for your contribution!

While I was there, I also listed the full range of trace names.

Regarding the limitation for updating the wiki... we're moving to Eclipse now, so anyone with a Eclipse bugzilla account should be able to contribute. Help is welcome!

The start page for Eclipse IAM in the wiki is: http://wiki.eclipse.org/IAM

--

Abel Muiño Vizcaino - http://ramblingabout.wordpress.com