The Eclipse projects are all stored in the Eclipse Foundation CVS servers. Using the source is a great way to debug your code and to figure out how to do new things.
Unfortunately in a large software project like BIRT, it can be difficult to know which projects and versions are required for a particular build. So what is the best way to get the source for a particular build?
Okay, I know the answer to this one...
Eclipse has a feature named Team Project Sets which allows you to define a collection of projects, stored in various version control systems that can be downloaded as a package. I have published a collection of team project set files that can be used to get the BIRT source. The files are stored in a Subversion repository here
I have a short article with a bit more detail on the BirtWorld blog.
Go to the BIRT website and follow their Directions.
Related
Together with my team I'm developing multiple native plugins based on Trigger.io. Since the recent changes I'm not completely sure on the workflow and cannot find anything about it in the documentation either. Some questions that arise:
1) Should one set of inspector projects be used for all the plugins or should each plugin has its own set?
2) Which parts of the inspector projects should be maintained via version control, which should remain local? (fyi: we use SVN)
3) (Android) When using one inspector project for each plugin, whats the best way to import them all as Java projects in Eclipse? Note: each inspector project has 3 sub projects which have the same name across different plugins, so they'd have to renamed? Assuming I have 5 plugins in development, that'd mean that I have to import 15 Java projects into Eclipse. Is this really how it's meant to be?
The most effective way to develop plugins is still something we're working on, how things are right now is probably not as good as it could be (especially for developing multiple plugins), but as things are right now:
1) Each plugin should have its own set of inspector projects.
2) The majority of what the Toolkit puts in the plugins folder is probably best in version control. Things you can safely ignore are the .trigger folder and any bin, gen, or build folders in the inspector projects. If you are trying to keep less files in version control the things you definitely need are the assets/src folder in the ForgeInspector, and any of your own source in ForgeModule, the rest of the inspector project should be regenerated by the Toolkit.
3) I'd recommend using an eclipse workspace per plugin, as the Toolkit regenerates a lot of the code when you update the inspector I don't think it is currently possible to rename the projects.
I thought I'd include a quick overview of what the 3 projects are and why there are 3:
ForgeCore - This is the pre-build core library for Trigger.io apps, its used by both ForgeInspector and ForgeModule so it needs to be a separate project that can be referenced by both
ForgeInspector - This is meant to replicate as closely as possible how your plugin will actually be used, so is basically a stripped down Trigger.io app, its separate to ForgeModule so that you can see what code is in your plugin and what code needs to be put into build_steps.json so it will also be applied to a real Trigger.io app at build time.
ForgeModule - This contains your plugin code
For my current project, every time I set up a new workspace, I need to import hundreds of existing projects scattered in 20+ different directories. Is there a way to automate this step in Eclipse?
These projects are all checked into ClearCase.
This answer shows how to import an arbitrary set of projects into Eclipse using a custom plugin.
If I understand your question correctly, you would simply need to specify the paths of all the projects to import in the newprojects.txt file in the workspace root. You may want to remove the part that deletes existing projects though.
Could you import them all into a SCCS and then check them out all at once? You might try this as an experiment using cvs, not because you want to start using cvs in 2009, but because it has the best Eclipse support. If cvs can't do it, the others probably can't either.
For snapshot views, we have a "template" workspace which reference the .project and .classpath files in a "standard" way:
c:\ccviews\projectA\vob1\path\...
c:\ccviews\projectB\vob1\path\...
c:\ccviews\projectC\vob2\path\...
So by copying that workspace, we are able to quickly setup the projects for a new member of the team.
Each colleague will define their own snapshot views with:
a unique name (
colleague1_projectA_snap,
colleague1_projectB_snap,
...)
the same root directory for each view referring to a given project
(c:\ccviews\projectA for:
colleague1_projectA_snap or
colleague2_projectA_snap or
colleague3_projectA_snap...)
Since a snapshot view can be located anywhere you like on your disk, you can:
define a standard path
scale that to a large number of snapshot views.
Of course, that would not be possible with dynamic views, since their paths would by:
m:\aUniqueName\vob1\path
You could ask for each user to associate a view to a drive letter, but that do not scale for a large number of views.
Anyway, dynamic views are great for accessing and consulting data, not for compilation (the time needed to access any large jar or dll through the network is just too important)
Eclipse as the concept of project sets, but I'm pretty sure that's tied to using CVS. My team used this feature and it's how we shared the set of projects between us.
Another 2 alternatives I know of:
Buckminster
It's an Eclipse project which does component assembly, and one part of that is projects. Documentation was a bit crappy last time I played with it, but it does work. No idea if they have support for ClearCase, though it is extensible.
Jazz
Costs money and is also built on Eclipse. Covers similar ground to Buckminster but goes a whole lot further in team-orientated stuff.
I have created some scripts to do this for SVN. Currently, the scripts are run from Vagrant, but you could run them standalone. The process for clearcase should be similar.
See the answer here, which provides links to the source code: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21229397/1033422
I am newbie to Eclipse, I am planning to use it for AVR development with WinAVR and gcc.
The feature I am looking for is the grouping of different files in the project, like all headers together, all source files together and all files excluded from the build together etc.
I tried AVR Studio from Atmel, it has this grouping feature but it lacks several other features which Eclipse supports. Any help to configure Eclipse Project explorer to display the project files in this way would be appreciated and helpful for me to decide the IDE to use.
Note: I know that I can manually add different folders for each of these groups and move the files, but that moves the physical files, and breaks the relative path in the code, and other comilers/IDE's. I am looking for logical grouping of files.
Unfortunately there is no general way for a user to configure the grouping in the Project Explorer, the grouping is setup based on the code that controls the content (i.e. CDT, JDT, etc). I think it would be interesting to have this feature, but it's not clear the UI that can be used to specify it. You are welcome to submit an enhancement request to add this to the Eclipse Platform UI project. And giving an example of how it's done in another product would be helpful.
Thanks Francis, looking at your profile I think I found the right person to solve my issue :)
I have opened it as a bug (as I could not find a feature request in bugzila) Bug 296514 - Logical Grouping Files in Project Explorer in Eclipse
I have attcahed screenshots of both AVR Studio and Eclipse project explorer. That should give you an idea of what kind of UI features I am requesting. I can difinetely provide more information if you want.
I think what you are looking for can be done with Working Sets.
We're looking into setting up a proper deployment process.
From what I've read there seems to be 4 methods of doing this.
Copy & Paste -- We don't want to do this
Using the "Package" mechanism built into the Salesforce Web Interface
Eclipse Force IDE "Deploy to Server" option
Ant Script (haven't tried this one yet)
Does anyone have advice on the limitation of the various methods .
Can you include everything in a Web Interface package?
We're looking to deploy the following items:
Apex Classes
Apex Triggers
WorkFlows
Email Templates
MailMerge Templates -- Can't seem to find these in Eclipse
Custom Fields
Page Layout
RecordTypes (can't seem to find these in Website or Eclipse)
PickList items?
SControls
I recommend the Force.com Migration Tool.
For reference:
Force.com Migration Tool Documentation
Migration Tool Guide
The Migration Tool allows you to use ant targets to move your metadata between salesforce.com organzations.
I can speak to this from recent painful experience.
Packaging: this is a very old method that predates the metadata API on which both Ant and Eclipse rely. In our experience, packaging's only benefit is in defining your project. If you're using Eclipse (which we do, and I recommend), you can define your project as being based on a particular package. As long as you remember to add new components to your package, your project hangs together
One thing that baffled us for a while, btw, are the many uses of package. We've noted the following:
Installed packages: these come in managed and unmanaged flavors and are really, in the words of a recent post on the SFDC boards, for ISVs to deploy their stuff into various unknown orgs "out there". Both managed and unmanaged packages have limitations that make them unsuitable and unneeded for deployment from development to production within an org, or in any case where you're doing custom development and don't intend to distribute code to a large anonymous base.
Non-installed packages: this is what you see when you click "Packages" in the web UI. These, that we sometimes call "development packages", seem to be just a convenient way to keep a project definition together.
Anyway, the conclusion I'm coming toward is that our team (custom development, not an ISV) does not need packages in any form.
The other forms of deployment, both Eclipse and Ant, rely on the Metadata API. In theory they are capable of exactly the same things. In reality they appear to be complementary. The Force.com migration tool, built into the Force.com IDE for Eclipse, makes deployment as easy as it can be (which is not very) and gives you a nice look at what it intends to deploy. On the other hand, we've seen Ant do some things the IDE could not. So it's probably worthwhile to learn both.
The process we're leaning toward is to keep all our projects in SVN, and use the SVN structure as the project definition (Eclipse will work with this and respect it). And we use Eclipse and sometimes Ant for migration. No apparent need for packages anywhere.
By the way, one more thing to be aware of -- not all components are migratable. Some things must be reconfigured by hand in the target environment. One example would be time-based workflows. Queues and Groups also need to behand-created, I think. Likewise the metadata API can't directly process field deletions so if you deleted a field in your source, you need to delete it by hand in the target. There are other cases as well.
Hope that's useful --
-- Steve Lane
As of Spring '09, mail merge templates are not supported in metadata but record types are. You will find record types as an XML element in the file for the object they belong to. Everything else on your list is supported with a small exception. Picklist values for standard fields cannot be edited in Spring '09. Stay tuned for news on Summer '09 feature announcements.
Update: Standard picklists on standard objects are now metadata exposed (as of API v16):
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/api_meta/Content/meta_picklist.htm
Otherwise, Steve Lane's response is pretty accurate. The advantage of using unmanaged packages (what Steve calls non-installed packages) is that when you add metadata to a package, the metadata it depends on will automatically be added. So it's easier to grab a full set of metadata containing all its dependencies. If you are repeatedly moving metadata from one org (sandbox) to another (production), Steve's approach is probably the best way to go and certainly the most common today. I frequently use unmanaged "developer" packages to move something I've developed in one org to another unrelated org. For my purpose, I like to have the package defined in the org as opposed to an Eclipse project / SVN. But that probably doesn't make sense if you are doing team development across many dev/sandbox orgs and are using SVN already.
Jesper
Another option is to use Change Sets if you want to move meta data from a sandbox to production.
There are currently some limitations on how change sets can be used:
Sending a change set between two organizations requires a deployment
connection. Currently, change sets can only be sent between
organizations that are affiliated with a production organization, for
example, a production organization and a sandbox, or two sandboxes
created from the same organization.
From the docs:
A package must be managed for it to be published publicly on AppExchange, and for it to support upgrades. An organization can create a single managed package that can be downloaded and installed by many different organizations. They differ from unmanaged packages in that some components are locked, allowing the managed package to be upgraded later. Unmanaged packages do not include locked components and cannot be upgraded. In addition, managed packages obfuscate certain components (like Apex) on subscribing organizations, so as to protect the intellectual property of the developer.
Advantage to managed package would be that it allows you to easily version and distribute things across multiple SFDC organizations.
I've recently had to switch from Visual Studio to Eclipse CDT.
It would seem that Eclipse "workspaces" are not quite like VS solution files.
Eclipse workspaces use the .metadata folder for managing multiple projects, but there doesn't seem to be a simple distinction between user settings or IDE preferences and project/solution settings.
What I want is a way to group a collection of related (and dependent) projects together and have that data live in source control without all the other user specific stuff that developers don't need to share.
You know, like a .sln file in Visual Studio.
Does Eclipse just not work this way? (And if not, then why not?)
Yes you are right eclipse does not manage projects in the same way VS does with solution files. However for putting a group of related projects into a VCS eclipse has the concept of a Team Project Set available in File->Export then under the Team folder there is Team Project Set.
Like JProgrammer said there is Team Project Set. You can send your colleagues a bunch of .psf files, works similar to VS.NET. I can only say we have good expierience with this feature.
I often find IDE's have a preferred way to work. Sure, you might be able to get the IDE to do it your way, but you'll probably end up fighting it all the way.
Try to use your IDE like their makers intended you to. They have made presumptions on how you are supposed to do your work. They have optimized the user experience according to those presumptions.
Go with the flow. Anything else will make you gnarly, bitter, wrinkly and give you gastly breath!
Corollary: If you can, choose the IDE that makes the same presumptions about workflow as you do!