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Re: [ecf-dev] new feature request
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Hi Carl,
Carl Cook wrote:
Hi All,
Attempting to build a shared editor, whether or not synchronous
modifications are supported, will really put ECF on the map in my
opinion. I think this is quite a critical point in the project.
Scott: one quick question: is the goal of ECF to provide general
collaboration support within eclipse, or is it tailored specifically
towards software engineering?
We are hoping that ECF can develop into a framework that is useful for
building plugins for the following app/tool contexts:
a) communications/collab support into Eclipse (the IDE)
b) communications/collab support into tools added onto IDE (e.g.
commercial and non-commercial modelling tools, sw proj mgmt tools, e.g.
BIRT, WTP, EMF, GEF, etc)
c) communications/collab support for any RCP apps that need/want it
I'm a little confused because of the focus on chat facilities and the
shared graph editor? Has development focused on this because these
are fairly easy applications to start with?
Yes. We are trying to strike the right balance between providing an
extensible framework/APIs AND applications (and exemplary tools) that
use these APIs and demonstrate (to users and developers) their
utility. We *don't* expect/desire that we will be the only ones
building applications and exemplary tools...in fact, I would be most
happy (speaking for myself) if 'a thousand flowers were to bloom' WRT
the applications and exemplary tools...whether commercial or not. If
ECF APIs eventually 'disappear' into the platform and all existing
apps/tools were replaced I think it would give us an opportunity to add
further technical value (as there is much work remaining WRT
authentication/authorization and integration with trust establishment
systems (e.g. Higgins) and OSGI layer, distributed components,
higher-level communications/collaboration application composition, etc.)
Before much development work is done towards shared editors, some of
you might be interested in taking a look at SubEtha Edit
(http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit
<http://www.codingmonkeys.de/subethaedit>). This is one of the most
popular multi-user editors, and it is designed primarily for source
code editing. By taking a look at the screenshots, it might give the
ECF developers a few ideas of what they want to support now, and what
might be in the pipeline in later releases.
Thanks...I agree subethaedit is very interesting. I just wish it
existed for something in addition to macs (as I don't have a mac right
now). I know that a combination of ECF (with additional
providers/protocol implementations) and the Eclipse editing/marker/EMF
and GEF APIs can/could do some pretty useful and cool things though.
Hopefully some of you folks out there with commercial intentions in this
area will consider this an opportunity. It may even be possible to have
an ECF provider that allowed interoperability between subethaedit and
Eclipse...although I don't know how much of the subethaedit app-level
messages are open/specified.
Incidentally, should my occasional ravings/comments be posted here, or
to the newsgroup?
Ravings to the newgroup would probably be best :). I wouild like to try
to use the ecf-dev mailing list more for discussions among the
committers (which Carl, if interested you might consider joining us...)
Scott