[platform-ui-dev] Template support

["Nick Edgar" <Nick_Edgar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Further to the post from Aleksey at Exigen on the eclipse-dev mailing 
list, we would like to start the discussion on support for templates in 
Eclipse R3.0.

Aleksey, we welcome any thoughts, comments, and code that you wish to 
contribute.
I'd also like to encourage others in the community to list their 
requirements too, and get involved in other ways if interested.

The item from the draft 2.2 plan is as follows:
"( expanded 2.1 PDE deferred item) Add project templates. Eclipse should 
provide a streamlined way to create projects using templates contributed 
by 
plug-ins. These project templates would be able to populate the projects 
with 
stock content so that projects don't start off completely empty. PDE's 
current mechanism should be generalized, pushed down into the Platform, 
and 
put to good use by JDT. [Platform UI, JDT UI, PDE UI]"

The support for templates in PDE was never meant to  be a general purpose 
solution.  It was designed specifically for PDE's needs and the use cases 
they needed to address.  If we're going to look at pushing this down to 
Platform UI, we need to understand:
- what are the essential aspects of the current support as far as PDE's 
needs are concerned?
- what are the limitations of the current support, that need to be 
improved to support important use cases for other products?
- what is the current level of support in Exigen?

Aleksey already mentioned a few points where Exigen's support is more 
general than the current PDE support:
1. resource templates and non-resource templates
2. template support for meta-projects ("solutions")

By (1) I assume that the template engine can generate templates for 
arbitrary files, not just workspace resources.  If not, please clarify.
This would be a key requirement for template support in Platform UI since, 
as part of the refactoring for the Rich Client Platform, we want the 
central "Workbench proper" to avoid any dependencies on 
org.eclipse.core.resources.  The template engine should do the same, to 
allow applications other than those centered around the workspace to use 
templates.

By (2) I assume that the template engine can generate multiple 
pre-populated projects from a template, and/or generate individual 
folders/files across projects.  If not, please clarify.  Although the 
Workspace does not have the concept of a "solution", this seems like a 
reasonable feature to support.  It would be good to list some of the 
concrete use cases that justify this.

Nick
Eclipse Platform UI Team Lead