Eclipse Examples Project
Introduction
The Eclipse Examples Project (EEP) provides a location for adopters of Eclipse technology to find well-documented example applications, platforms, and features/plug-ins/bundles that demonstrate the use of Eclipse technology. The idea behind the project is to provide a home for examples of applications and plug-ins that use Eclipse technology. As a general rule, examples utilize technologies from multiple Eclipse projects, though this is not rigorously enforced to avoid excluding examples that might otherwise be useful and interesting.
We believe that a collection of well-documented and compelling examples demonstrating the use of Eclipse technology is of great benefit to the projects and the adopter community. First, these examples provide increased visibility for the projects. Further, they provide a vehicle for demonstrating and testing interactions between projects that might otherwise be difficult or impossible provide in the context of any one project. Perhaps most important, these examples provide much-needed documentation for adopters of Eclipse Technology.
You are invited to comment on and/or join the project. Please send all feedback to the http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/thread.php?group=eclipse.technology.eep newsgroup.Values
The following values guide the development of EEP components.
Examples use Eclipse runtime technology. Eclipse Equinox is the delivery platform for all examples except when non-Java technology is required, or it is otherwise inappropriate. Eclipse technology is also used to to create the examples. Where Eclipse tools are used in a novel or non-obvious manner to create the example code, processes employed are documented.
Only public APIs are used in the examples. Examples use the most recent APIs when a choice is available.
The most recent releases of Eclipse projects are supported. As the Eclipse projects the examples are built upon are updated, so are the examples. Examples support the most recent "general availability"(GA) release (n) and (possibly) the previous GA release (n-1) of the projects they use. Examples clearly indicate—on both the website and, when possible, within the example itself—the projects and releases they are built upon. Examples that cannot be maintained, or support Eclipse project releases older than n-1, are archived.
All examples are thoroughly documented. More specifically, all classes, interfaces, and non-trivial fields and methods—irrespective of any visibility modifiers—have comments that describe their utility. All comments are as descriptive as they need to be, including sensible cross-referencing links where appropriate. Comments are not long-winded or unnecessarily long.
Examples are as small as possible. Unnecessary or unused files, types, constructors, fields, methods, etc. are removed.
Examples are implemented in as simple a manner as possible (but no simpler). Implementations are not simplistic. They are sophisticated enough to demonstrate how the technology is used.
Where possible, examples are extensible. Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) applications are built as extensible platforms. Examples that manifest as bundles are, where sensible, extendable by other bundles.
Examples are test-infected. That is, they are thoroughly covered with JUnit tests (using the most recent version of JUnit). In keeping spirit with the other values, test code is also well-documented, and are implemented as small and simple as possible.
Examples are easily downloaded and buildable. Examples that require extra artifacts (like bundles from Orbit, or custom RCP targets) include scripts and/or instructions for building the custom environment. Where possible, Eclipse technology such as Buckminster is used to define these scripts (further increasing the utility of the example).
Examples are translatable into multiple languages where appropriate and sensible. All strings are externalized. Examples leverage the most recent version ICU4J in providing this support.
Examples are IP reviewed. All intellectual property (IP) contributions to the project pass IP review within nine months of submission. Contributions which cannot be reviewed within that time are removed from the repository.
Initial Contributions
Each of the following applications is a separate component in the project.
Sudoku
The Eclipse Sudoku is well known within the community. It is implemented as an Eclipse RCP application and has already been enhanced with multiple-user support by Eclipse Communication Framework (ECF) committers. Further, it has been adapted to run on embedded devices using the Embedded RCP (eRCP) and there is interest in developing a version of it that will run on the Rich Ajax Platform (RAP).
Sudoku is implemented as an extensible platform that can be enhanced with additional puzzle generators and solvers (which, incidentally, is the reason that the example was originally created).
Organizer
The Eclipse Organizer provides task management and e-mail functionality. It is implemented as an extensible platform that can be extended to provide other types of functionality including such things as contact and calendar management.
The current implementation is very much a proof of concept that will change architecturally in the coming months. We envision that this example will make use of technology provided by the EclipseLink project for data connectivity, and the Higgins project for identity management. We believe that there is also potential for the use of technology from the ECF, Riena, and Swordfish projects in this example.
We recognize that some of the functionality provided by this example, specifically task management, is already provided by the Mylyn project. It is not our intention to complete with that project or any similar products. The task management in this example functionality is very rudimentary and our plan for moving forward with this example will include consideration for possible incorporation of Mylyn technology.
Image Preview View
The Image Preview is a feature that includes a small number of bundles that contribute a view that provides a preview of the image associated with the current selection in the workbench window. The example shows how views that are tightly integrated with the workbench can be loosely coupled from much of the framework using the workbench selection service, and the adapter framework. The implementation currently provides a preview for selected files, but can be extended by providing adapters for other types of objects.
Organization
Mentors
- Wayne Beaton (wayne@eclipse.org)
- Thomas Hallgren (thomas@tada.se)
Initial committers
The initial committers will focus on getting the aforementioned examples into the code repository, filling in missing functionality and ensuring that the project values have been applied. They will further focus on identifying other examples that are appropriate for inclusion in the project; we will activity encourage contributions both of code and development resources. Our agile development process will follow eclipse.org's standards for openness and transparency.
The initial committers and contributors are:
- Wayne Beaton (wayne@eclipse.org) : Project Lead, Committer
- Scott Lewis (slewis@composent.com) : Committer
- Remy Suen (remy.suen@gmail.com) : Committer
- Heiko Seeberger (heiko.seeberger@metafinanz.de) : Committer
- Benjamin Muskalla (bmuskalla@innoopract.com) : Committer
- Ha Li (halizhangyu@sina.com) : Commmitter
Code Contribution
The Eclipse Foundation offers an initial code contribution for all of the aforementioned examples.
Interested parties
- Tom Schindl (tom.schindl@bestsolution.at)
- Doug Clarke (douglas.clarke@oracle.com)
- Peter Krogh (peter.krogh@oracle.com)
- Channing Walton (channing.walton@casualmiracles.com)
- Chris Aniszczyk (zx@ibm.com)
- Thomas Hallgren (thomas@tada.se)
User community
The intended user community is developers who are building applications, products, tools, IDEs, plug-ins and more using Eclipse technology.
Tentative Plan
The EEP will retrain incubator status for the foreseeable future. No components of this project are intended to be ever become official Eclipse API.
The Eclipse Examples Project will make use of the Eclipse CVS repository to ensure that the barriers to entry are low. The first step will be to establish the incubation status of the project and then move the aforementioned initial contributions through the IP due diligence process and into the source code repository and establish Eclipse Bugzilla components for each of them.
Once the project is established, we will start the process of merging the Sudoku currently present in the DSDP CVS repository into EEP. We will then engage in revising the architecture of the Sudoku example with the intent of generalizing it to make a better fit for a RAP-based version.
The architecture of the Eclipse Organizer application will be revisited with consideration for inclusion of Higgins to provide identity management for the e-mail client and EclipseLink for local persistence of artifacts.
Development of a detailed plan for this development is targeted to coincide with the Ganymede 'M5' release, with availability of the completed examples coinciding with the Ganymede 'GA' release. Subsequent updates will be coordinated with the release schedules of prerequisite projects. The EEP does not intend to formally join the Ganymede release train.
The plan will include an automated build process that itself will serve as an example (ideally building on existing automation provided by Eclipse projects). The build process builds against the most recent "I-builds" from prerequisite projects, runs tests, and informs (via the developer mailing list) project committers of problems. Where possible, examples that fail to meet with project values will be flagged appropriately on the project website and marked for archival as part of this automated process.
Changes in this document
2008-01-06: Added Thomas Hallgren as a mentor.
2008-01-05: Added Benjamin Muskalla as a committer.