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Building RCP Applications [message #435368]

Tue, 16 August 2005 09:38

Eclipse User

Hi.

This is not the first time me and other RCP developers have to
ask this question. Due to the fact that I'm currently completely
pissed off by the fact that obviously the whole plugin architecture
is lacking a decent build process, I'd like to know how you guys
manage to build a RCP based product?!

So: where can I find a proper documentation on how to build a
RCP based application?!

The 3.1 export wizard triggered by the 'Product Configuration Editor'
simply doesn't work, well sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Errors reported by the export wizard (logs.zip) are next to useless,
because one has no clue how to solve them. Here's an example of
one of the log files:

1. ERROR in C:\development\projects\...\XXX.java
(at line 18)
import org.eclipse.jface.resource.ColorRegistry;
The import org.eclipse.jface cannot be resolved

Interesting. And why is it possible to run the product from within
the IDE? Shouldn't this give me the same error?! It doesn't.
The IDE compiles the same plugin and the run configuration used to
run the product launches the application without any errors.
I've got a really bad feeling that I still don't understand the
black magic needed to applied to determine all required plugins.

This build process sucks.

Sorry for moaning, but this issue consumed way too much time
since we decided to choose the RCP framework for building our
applications; time that's wasted taking the domain functionality
into account we have to implement. After all we spent 70% struggling
with the RCP framework until now.

RCP - a bad decision after all, but we spent so much time on it that we
have no choice but to continue to find further workarounds to get a
product shipped some day - hopefully.

Marcus

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435370 is a reply to message #435368]

Tue, 16 August 2005 09:59

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: jordan.day.21csi.com

Well, I don't know what other errors you're experiencing, but based on the
one you listed below, I'm wondering if you have configured the product
completely. When you open your XXXX.product file, go to the configuration
page, and make sure to click "Add Required Plug-ins"... this should include
all the plugins that your plugin uses.

Jordan
"Marcus Olk" <molk@comosoft.de> wrote in message
news:ddsq8p$a9a$1@news.eclipse.org...
> Hi.
>
> This is not the first time me and other RCP developers have to
> ask this question. Due to the fact that I'm currently completely
> pissed off by the fact that obviously the whole plugin architecture
> is lacking a decent build process, I'd like to know how you guys
> manage to build a RCP based product?!
>
> So: where can I find a proper documentation on how to build a
> RCP based application?!
>
> The 3.1 export wizard triggered by the 'Product Configuration Editor'
> simply doesn't work, well sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
> Errors reported by the export wizard (logs.zip) are next to useless,
> because one has no clue how to solve them. Here's an example of
> one of the log files:
>
> 1. ERROR in C:\development\projects\...\XXX.java
> (at line 18)
> import org.eclipse.jface.resource.ColorRegistry;
> The import org.eclipse.jface cannot be resolved
>
> Interesting. And why is it possible to run the product from within
> the IDE? Shouldn't this give me the same error?! It doesn't.
> The IDE compiles the same plugin and the run configuration used to
> run the product launches the application without any errors.
> I've got a really bad feeling that I still don't understand the
> black magic needed to applied to determine all required plugins.
>
> This build process sucks.
>
> Sorry for moaning, but this issue consumed way too much time
> since we decided to choose the RCP framework for building our
> applications; time that's wasted taking the domain functionality
> into account we have to implement. After all we spent 70% struggling
> with the RCP framework until now.
>
> RCP - a bad decision after all, but we spent so much time on it that we
> have no choice but to continue to find further workarounds to get a
> product shipped some day - hopefully.
>
> Marcus

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435371 is a reply to message #435370]

Tue, 16 August 2005 10:12

Eclipse User

Jordan,

thanks for you reply.

> one you listed below, I'm wondering if you have configured the product
> completely. When you open your XXXX.product file, go to the configuration
> page, and make sure to click "Add Required Plug-ins"... this should include
> all the plugins that your plugin uses.

Sure I did. And the interesting fact is that the same product
configuration exports fine on a different machine without errors.
I have no clue how to debug what goes wrong on the particular
machine. It's the same Eclipse Version (3.1), the same OS (Windows XP)
and its the same source code snapshot checked out from the repository.

That's my point: if it exports - fine. But if not you're left alone
in the dark - there's no way to debug a failing build/export process.
"Here's your error logs - enjoy guessing what went wrong..."

What's left is trial'n'error and that's very bad.

Marcus

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435374 is a reply to message #435371]

Tue, 16 August 2005 11:54

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: wegener.cboenospam.com

Marcus Olk wrote:

> Jordan,

> thanks for you reply.

>> one you listed below, I'm wondering if you have configured the product
>> completely. When you open your XXXX.product file, go to the configuration
>> page, and make sure to click "Add Required Plug-ins"... this should include
>> all the plugins that your plugin uses.

> Sure I did. And the interesting fact is that the same product
> configuration exports fine on a different machine without errors.
> I have no clue how to debug what goes wrong on the particular
> machine. It's the same Eclipse Version (3.1), the same OS (Windows XP)
> and its the same source code snapshot checked out from the repository.

> That's my point: if it exports - fine. But if not you're left alone
> in the dark - there's no way to debug a failing build/export process.
> "Here's your error logs - enjoy guessing what went wrong..."

> What's left is trial'n'error and that's very bad.

> Marcus

Take a look at this bug:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=101966

Is references deploying plugins and not RCP applications, but still might
be applicable.

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435377 is a reply to message #435371]

Wed, 17 August 2005 02:31

Eclipse User

Originally posted by: Jens.Gohrke.jSoft.de

Marcus Olk schrieb:

> Sure I did. And the interesting fact is that the same product
> configuration exports fine on a different machine without errors.
> I have no clue how to debug what goes wrong on the particular
> machine. It's the same Eclipse Version (3.1), the same OS (Windows XP)
> and its the same source code snapshot checked out from the repository.

I had a similar problem - and also spend a big time on it.

In my case we had imported one or more of the RCP plugins into
workspace as project binaries with linked content and on one or
more of these plugins there where config errors (no idea where they
came from) that reduced the package visibility to other
plugins. As the plugins in workspace take precedence over the
configured plugins at runtime these errors surfaced and gave
us a real hard time. when i removed these plugin-projects
from workspace everything went fine... since then I look
very carefully at the import options when importing a
plugin into workspace.

I did not cross check this issue thoroughly, basically because
I was happy that everything was up and running again.

I am also very confused sometimes about the side-effects that
the product configuration and its wizards have - I feel their
activity is not really consistent to the in-IDE compilation
process. This is mainly because of differences in the actual
classpath when in IDE and while and after exporting...
are there any guides on this available or do I have to
employ somebody to dig into the sources ;-)

Maybe this helps

Greets

Jens

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435588 is a reply to message #435377]

Thu, 18 August 2005 11:27

Eclipse User

Jens Gohrke wrote:
> plugins. As the plugins in workspace take precedence over the
> configured plugins at runtime these errors surfaced and gave
> us a real hard time. when i removed these plugin-projects
> from workspace everything went fine... since then I look
> very carefully at the import options when importing a
> plugin into workspace.

That was the solution in my case as well. Thanks for the hint.
Fine, but this emphasizes the need for a way better and traceable
build process, doesn't it? One has no clue what went wrong.

> Maybe this helps

Yep. Cheers.

Marcus

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435642 is a reply to message #435588]

Sat, 20 August 2005 00:48

Eclipse User

If you haven't already, please enter a bugzilla for each error message you find that's unclear. I remember entering a bunch of them when RCP first came out the developers cleaned up a whole lot of problems. They don't try all the wacky things we do, because they know better :).

Also if you find yourself beating your head against the wall about something it doesn't hurt to ask on the forum before you get completely frustrated. I find that sometimes writing and posting a question helps clarify things in my mind so it will often help me find the solution myself even if I don't get a response.

Re: Building RCP Applications [message #435660 is a reply to message #435642]

Mon, 22 August 2005 04:28

Eclipse User

Ed,

Ed Burnette wrote:
> If you haven't already, please enter a bugzilla for each error message you find that's unclear.

Done and still waiting for an answer to my question where to find
a decent documentation on this build issue:

https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=105295

> I remember entering a bunch of them when RCP first came out the developers cleaned up a whole
> lot of problems. They don't try all the wacky things we do,
> because they know better :).

Sure, that's a fundamental problem we ourselves from a developer's
perspective have to cope with. Or to take back the user's perspective,
the users of our work have to cope with.
All I need to know is the state of this issue: am I using the export
in a false manner or is there a bug? And: is there a decent headless
build process in the works?

I've got a really bad feeling about this, because we need to have
a headless build process to do nightly builds. I am aware of the
fact that the platform is beeing build with such a process. But this
process seems to be far away from beeing ready to be used by none
eclipse contributors...

> Also if you find yourself beating your head against the wall about something
> it doesn't hurt to ask on the forum before you get completely
> frustrated. I find that sometimes writing and posting a question helps
> clarify things in my mind so it will often help me find the solution
> myself even if I don't get a response.

Sure. But this wasn't my first posting on this issue. And this time
with a bit of moaning there was a response :)
Even though the fundamental issue has not been solved, yet.
All I want to know is if this issue has been registerd to be an open
issue and if someone is working on it. I still don't know if I'm just
using the export process in a false manner...

Marcus

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