I've been doing some background investigation into how we might integrate with Eclipse and want to outline some possible approaches and solicit feedback from others. We've got several project proposals related to this as part of the Google Summer of Code, so work could start relatively quickly if one of them is accepted. Even if none of those applications are accepted, I'll probably start doing some more substantial work over the summer.
There are a several levels of integration that we could pursue: 1. Basic integration - No graphical integration. ArgoUML and Eclipse run in their own main windows. Simple communication and control possible to do things like tell ArgoUML to open a new project from Eclipse (e.g. in response to a double click) or have ArgoUML tell Eclipse to refresh a project or run a build action when a project is saved by ArgoUML or it does code generation. This was the level that MagicDraw provided up until it's recent version 11 release. You can see descriptions of the previous and current levels of integration in these two manuals http://www.magicdraw.com/files/manuals/10.5/MagicDraw%20Integrations%20UserG uide.pdf http://www.magicdraw.com/files/manuals/11.0/MagicDraw%20Integrations%20UserG uide.pdf 2. Basic GUI integration - ArgoUML main diagram window and property panel displayed unchanged (as Swing objects) within Eclipse SWT panes. Perhaps rework of explorer pane functionality to fit with Eclipse view. Perhaps a critics pane. Use of Eclipse menu bar for all menu functions. Swing/SWT hybrids in Eclipse don't work on Apple Macs today, but they are supposed to be fixing that. The visual style of the Swing and SWT panes will be noticeably different, but it allows a large amount of existing code to be reused. The is basically the approach that Genuitec took when they forked the ArgoUML base for their Eclipse plug-in. 3. Eclipse/RCP framework for ArgoUML infrastructure - At this level we would get out of the infrastructure business and focus on doing the components where we add real value and use existing Eclipse plugging for everything else. We would integrate with the Eclipse command and undo facilities. Existing ArgoUML plugging would migrate to using the Eclipse plug-in mechanisms. The standalone ArgoUML application would become an RCP application. Naturally this would probably make integration with other environments such as NetBeans more difficult and would couple our fortunes to those of Eclipse. Of course any of these levels could be implemented in a phased fashion and we could move from one to the other over time. Also, somewhat orthogonal but related to this is that we could use Eclipse components for specific tasks such as using their UML 2.1 support even in our current standalone configuration. I've got my own ideas of what we should do, but I'm interested in hearing what others think (including any on the list who submitted one of the Google Summer of Code applications in this area). Tom --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
