Home » Eclipse Projects » Eclipse Platform » Shared eclipse settings for a team
| Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334714] |
Wed, 25 February 2009 13:57  |
 Mohamed Hussein
Messages: 76
Registered: July 2009 |
Member |
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Hello,
I would like to create a shared eclipse setting for a team of developers
that are moving to Eclipse.
I would like to make the experience as easy and uniform as possible.
After digging around the help and news groups, I found solutions for
shared eclipse installation with the set of needed plugins.
I also found that the .project and .classpath are enough for the project
information (dependencies info) so this will be under version control
(clearcase) with the code.
What I couldn't find is a way to share workspace settings (preferences)
like Code style, Errors and Warnings, ...
I saw that there is an Export/Import mechanism for most of those settings,
but each one separately, and I see that some of the settings can be made
on the project level so can be checked in with the project.
But the problem is that we will have lots of workspaces for the different
branches we work on, and each workspace will have more than one project,
so it will not be convenient to ask the users to import all the settings
one by one in each workspace, nor it will be practical to have the same
settings duplicated in each project.
I think that this is a common problem, and I hope that a solution exists
for it.
I am looking for one of the following:
1 - A way to headlessly export and import those settings from the
workspace, so I can include it in a script users run when setting the
workspace for the first time.
Or
2- A single Export/Import action from the GUI that will import all the
settings.
Another question, is there a way to create the workspace and add projects
to it programmatically.
The projects will be checked in a single directory in clearcase, so I can
create a script that invokes eclipse and create the workspace if it is not
there and add those projects to it. That is not essential, but it will be
nice to have as the import action from the gui is very easy to use.
Thanks in advance for your help.
Best regards,
Mamado.
Best Regards,
Mohamed.
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334764 is a reply to message #334722] |
Thu, 26 February 2009 14:18  |
Mohamed Hussein
Messages: 76
Registered: July 2009 |
Member |
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>> What I couldn't find is a way to share workspace settings (preferences)
>> like Code style, Errors and Warnings, ...
> I way to share the same errors and warnings on the compiler is to turn
> on project-specific settings for all shared projects. But logically,
> this makes you lose the ability to quickly enable a new warning for all
> shared projects, for instance, since you'd have to repeat the operation
> for each project AFAIK.
I agree with you, and one way we thought of is to have a designated
"master" project, and have script duplicate that info in all projects, but
I think this is an overkill.
I think that this should be a feature in Eclipse (if it is not already
available in some plugin), am I asking for too much :-)
Thanks,
Mamado
Best Regards,
Mohamed.
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334819 is a reply to message #334764] |
Mon, 02 March 2009 07:42 |
Mohamed Hussein
Messages: 76
Registered: July 2009 |
Member |
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>>> What I couldn't find is a way to share workspace settings (preferences)
>>> like Code style, Errors and Warnings, ...
>> I way to share the same errors and warnings on the compiler is to turn
>> on project-specific settings for all shared projects. But logically,
>> this makes you lose the ability to quickly enable a new warning for all
>> shared projects, for instance, since you'd have to repeat the operation
>> for each project AFAIK.
> I agree with you, and one way we thought of is to have a designated
> "master" project, and have script duplicate that info in all projects, but
> I think this is an overkill.
> I think that this should be a feature in Eclipse (if it is not already
> available in some plugin), am I asking for too much :-)
Is this true? There is no way to share settings with users via version
control except by using project specific settings and duplicate the
settings for all projects in the workspace?
Thanks,
Mamado.
Best Regards,
Mohamed.
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334826 is a reply to message #334819] |
Mon, 02 March 2009 14:21 |
Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: eclipse-news.rizzoweb.com
On 3/2/2009 2:42 AM, Mamado wrote:
>>>> What I couldn't find is a way to share workspace settings
>>>> (preferences) like Code style, Errors and Warnings, ...
>
>>> I way to share the same errors and warnings on the compiler is to
>>> turn on project-specific settings for all shared projects. But
>>> logically, this makes you lose the ability to quickly enable a new
>>> warning for all shared projects, for instance, since you'd have to
>>> repeat the operation for each project AFAIK.
>
>> I agree with you, and one way we thought of is to have a designated
>> "master" project, and have script duplicate that info in all projects,
>> but I think this is an overkill.
>
>> I think that this should be a feature in Eclipse (if it is not already
>> available in some plugin), am I asking for too much :-)
>
>
> Is this true? There is no way to share settings with users via version
> control except by using project specific settings and duplicate the
> settings for all projects in the workspace?
There is no "simple" way, no. Remember that Preferences are
workspace-specific and workspaces are NOT designed to be shared. Not to
mention the fact that many people work using several different
workspaces and you would not want them all to have the same preferences.
I think the right path to take if you feel the pain of duplicating
settings into many different projects is to get that specific issue
addressed, rather than trying to convince people that sharing workspace
preferences is "the right thing" (because it simply isn't "the right
thing" for many users).
Eric
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334842 is a reply to message #334834] |
Mon, 02 March 2009 19:47 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: eclipse-news.rizzoweb.com
On 3/2/2009 12:07 PM, Mamado wrote:
> This solution can help reducing the pain, but I still think that Eclipse
> should provide more support in sharing settings between different
> workspaces and different developers working in a uniform environment.
Well, be more specific. Besides project-specific settings and easy
export/import of workspace preferences, both of which are already
provided, what else would you like to have it do?
Think about and formulate your answer to that question and enter it as
an enhancement request into Bugzilla. Be specific.
Eric
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334860 is a reply to message #334842] |
Wed, 04 March 2009 07:37 |
Mohamed Hussein
Messages: 76
Registered: July 2009 |
Member |
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> Well, be more specific. Besides project-specific settings and easy
> export/import of workspace preferences, both of which are already
> provided, what else would you like to have it do?
> Think about and formulate your answer to that question and enter it as
> an enhancement request into Bugzilla. Be specific.
I am sorry for not being specific from the beginning, I wanted to describe
the background behind my request, to be specific now:
I want an easy way to share specific workspace settings that are machine
independent across a team.
The best option that suites my need is:
Separate workspace settings into two groups, a shareable one, and a
user/machine specific one, and make it easy to put this shareable set
under version control.
A workaround is to have a "single" export/import preferences action, and
allow that action to run in batch mode, to be able to create/update new
workspace automatically with the preferred settings.
Shall I file this enhancement on eclipse.platform?
Best Regards,
Mohamed.
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334872 is a reply to message #334860] |
Thu, 05 March 2009 14:51 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: eclipse-news.rizzoweb.com
I still don't see how any solution for sharing workspace settings is as
good as just using project-specific settings (if we ignore for a minute
the problem of keeping may projects' settings in sync with each other*).
I think it is obvious that relying on workspace settings is not
reliable. At any time the user can change his workspace settings and
there is no way for anyone else to know about that (or for the user to
even know that he did something "wrong"). However, with project-specific
settings that are checked in to version control, if someone makes a
change *everyone sees it (and those things can be locked down so that
only certain people can commit such changes).
Furthermore, it is naive to assume that all projects that might be in
the same workspace at any one time will require identical settings. It
is quite common IME for different projects to have different choices for
settings, something that using only workspace-wide settings does not
support at all.
* Now, as I've said earlier, I think it would be an interesting path to
explore the idea of some tool support for keeping settings of multiple
projects in sync with each other. I recognize that this is a bit of a
pain right now and I'd bet there are some good ideas for how such a tool
would work. If you enter or find a bug report about that, please post
the number here as I would like to follow that discussion.
Eric
On 3/4/2009 2:37 AM, Mamado wrote:
>
>> Well, be more specific. Besides project-specific settings and easy
>> export/import of workspace preferences, both of which are already
>> provided, what else would you like to have it do?
>> Think about and formulate your answer to that question and enter it as
>> an enhancement request into Bugzilla. Be specific.
>
> I am sorry for not being specific from the beginning, I wanted to
> describe the background behind my request, to be specific now:
>
> I want an easy way to share specific workspace settings that are machine
> independent across a team.
>
> The best option that suites my need is:
> Separate workspace settings into two groups, a shareable one, and a
> user/machine specific one, and make it easy to put this shareable set
> under version control.
>
> A workaround is to have a "single" export/import preferences action, and
> allow that action to run in batch mode, to be able to create/update new
> workspace automatically with the preferred settings.
>
> Shall I file this enhancement on eclipse.platform?
>
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334876 is a reply to message #334872] |
Thu, 05 March 2009 16:39 |
Mohamed Hussein
Messages: 76
Registered: July 2009 |
Member |
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Eric Rizzo wrote:
> I still don't see how any solution for sharing workspace settings is as
> good as just using project-specific settings (if we ignore for a minute
> the problem of keeping may projects' settings in sync with each other*).
> I think it is obvious that relying on workspace settings is not
> reliable. At any time the user can change his workspace settings and
> there is no way for anyone else to know about that (or for the user to
> even know that he did something "wrong"). However, with project-specific
> settings that are checked in to version control, if someone makes a
> change *everyone sees it (and those things can be locked down so that
> only certain people can commit such changes).
> Furthermore, it is naive to assume that all projects that might be in
> the same workspace at any one time will require identical settings. It
> is quite common IME for different projects to have different choices for
> settings, something that using only workspace-wide settings does not
> support at all.
> * Now, as I've said earlier, I think it would be an interesting path to
> explore the idea of some tool support for keeping settings of multiple
> projects in sync with each other. I recognize that this is a bit of a
> pain right now and I'd bet there are some good ideas for how such a tool
> would work. If you enter or find a bug report about that, please post
> the number here as I would like to follow that discussion.
Hello Eric,
I agree with you that Project settings is the best approach, but the pain
is huge, especially when number of projects increase.
I think one solution might be to have settings profiles and in the project
you select which setting profile to use, and you have the ability to
further customize the profile, and those settings profiles should be
version controlled as well.
Another solution is to have a tool that physically duplicate the settings
among projects, but I believe this looks more like a workaround than a
solution.
I really appreciate your input and suggestions. I am still new to Eclipse,
and I am learning a lot from your input and everyone else in those lovely
forums.
Thanks again,
Mamado.
Best Regards,
Mohamed.
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| Re: Shared eclipse settings for a team [message #334885 is a reply to message #334876] |
Fri, 06 March 2009 14:57 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: eclipse-news.rizzoweb.com
On 3/5/2009 11:39 AM, Mamado wrote:
> Eric Rizzo wrote:
>> * Now, as I've said earlier, I think it would be an interesting path
>> to explore the idea of some tool support for keeping settings of
>> multiple projects in sync with each other. I recognize that this is a
>> bit of a pain right now and I'd bet there are some good ideas for how
>> such a tool would work. If you enter or find a bug report about that,
>> please post the number here as I would like to follow that discussion.
>
>
> Hello Eric,
>
> I agree with you that Project settings is the best approach, but the
> pain is huge, especially when number of projects increase.
>
> I think one solution might be to have settings profiles and in the
> project you select which setting profile to use, and you have the
> ability to further customize the profile, and those settings profiles
> should be version controlled as well.
I like that idea of settings profiles.
I just found these two bug reports that are discussing this topic; I
suggest you add yourself to the CC list and/or add whatever comments you
can contribute.
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=163543
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=194414
Eric
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