From: epp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:epp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ian Skerrett
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 2:39 PM
To: 'Eclipse Packaging Project'
Subject: RE: [epp-dev] FW: EPP content wizard
I think it is a great idea and it would be great to see for
Ganymede. Of course the risk is that it doesn’t work but I think we
can mitigate the risk by 1) having awesome developers work on it, and 2) making
sure it is optional, so we can bring it down if it doesn’t work.
What I would suggest is that on the new package site we add a
‘customize’ button. This would allow each package to be
customized; the starting point can be the package contents but then the user
can add or delete the contents using the wizard. The one thing I would
like to see part of all installs is the UDC component.
Btw, where would this code reside? Do we need to put this
through the IP process?
Ian
From: epp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:epp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jeff McAffer
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 1:44 PM
To: epp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [epp-dev] FW: EPP content wizard
Sigh,
this is a resend as the original did not seem to get through…
Jeff
From: Jeff McAffer [mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, May 07, 2008 1:01 PM
To: 'epp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: EPP content wizard
I was in Germany last week for JAX
and Eclipse Forum Europe. While there a group of people got talking about
Eclipse, Ganymede, EPP, p2, etc and end user experiences in getting
Eclipse. One of the ideas that surfaced was creating a RAP-based wizard
that would allow people to select a package and then refine the contents of the
package. After completing the wizard users would get a p2-based installer
that would install the profile they just described.
This seemed like a really cool
direction so Jordi Lopez and I spent a bit of time talking about if this could
work, how it would work etc. It seemed feasible so we started to scratch
together some code to actually do it. That has progressed but is not
demo-able yet.
We had a brief discussion with
Markus and he rightly suggested that we surface the idea to the EPP community
before it goes much further. So, we can get into more technical detail
etc but first,
1) Is
this something in which the EPP community is interested?
2) If
so, where/how should the work be done? I am volunteering Code 9 to do the
p2 side of things and Jordi/Innoopract is game for the RAP side.
The value in doing this are
multi-fold:
-
Users should get a better experience when they need
more than just one of the canned packages
-
Projects that are not part of one of the packages get
more exposure by being offered as part of the wizard
-
This is a great demo for Eclipse technology such as
RAP, Equinox on the server, p2, …
I understand that flavors of this
topic have been discussed here before and apologize if this is a rehashing and
to be absolutely clear, EPP should still offer the download zips. The
wizard idea would just augment the story. If it turns out not to work, we
do not need to make it visible.
In any event, the idea of a wizard
for selecting content is, IMHO, particularly compelling and I think we have a
real shot at making it happen. What do you think?
Jeff