I have been working on one of the most requested Zest features, custom figures, and by EclipesCon it will be finished.  Now you are no longer stuck with those little blue rounded rectangles.  You can construct all sorts of custom figures, or even make use of an ImageFigure.

Zest Custom Figure

You can either do this by creating a CGraphNode, or in the viewer by using an IFigureProvider (as your label provider).  Now we can construct some UML Style visualizations using Zest.  Is anybody interested in trying to hook up an SVG parser (I think batik is part of Orbit)?

Want to learn about this and other cool Zest tips and tricks. Come see my talk at EclipseCon.

Tags: eclipse, eclipsecon, zest

We are all busy preparing our talks and demonstrations for EclipseCon, aren’t we? This year I am trying to use in all of my talks a common set of examples.

The plan is to showcase technology from several projects. I will start with the EPP Download Wizard (at the moment ‘Friends-of-Eclipse’ only) from my EPP project that has been build as a RAP application and uses Equinox, p2, and the p2 installer. With the EPP Download Wizard, a user is able to pick and choose from a set of available installable units. On the last wizard page, he or she can download a small customized p2 installer that will download the selected pieces from the p2 repositories. There will be various talks about the things that we do in EPP, e.g. the talk of my colleagues about the internals of the EPP Wizard, or my other talk about the EPP Usage Data Collector.

But what if a developer who is developing this wizard or another application wants to deploy it on a server? The first problem: You need a server! The answer to this question is easy: Use g-Eclipse, our Grid and Cloud Computing tooling, and start your own server on the cloud. This can be done within minutes and we are going to show this in our Equinox above the Cloud talk.

Now that you have your own server up and running, all you need to do is deploying your application on it. But how is this done… well, attend our talk and you will find out how easy it is with p2!

Tags: aws, cloud computing, ec2, ecf, eclipsecon, epp, g-Eclipse, OSGi, p2, rap

Riena 3.5.M6 is available, just in time for EclipseCon (new and noteworthy). 

The Riena highlights at the conference next week:

• Come to the Riena BOF on Tuesday to discuss the project with the team. As one of the committers behind the UI (Ridgets), I’m looking forward to feedback from developers who consume it or are thinking about using it.
• If you’re new to Riena I highly recommend Christian’s talk  ’Write a Client/Server application based on Riena in 25 minutes‘  on Wednesday. Christian shows how to write a Riena app quickly including creating the UI, using Ridgets, easy data-binding and access to the server with Remote Services. It’s a quick, hands-on overview of what Riena is about.
   
• The Riena talk I’m most curious about is Ekke’s and Florian’s presentation ‘Dynamic View for Business Applications (Riena + EMF + oAW)‘ on Thursday. Ekke and Florian are two of the most active members of the Riena community. As far as I can tell they have written a model-driven UI-generator based on Riena+EMF+oAW. Update 3/19: you can read more details here. I’m looking forward to their talk.

See you at EclipseCon,

Elias.

Tags: eclipse ui, eclipsecon, new and noteworthy, riena

I’ve been busy this weekend preparing one of the EclipseCon talks I will be doing together with Jordi. The background story to this talk is that we wanted to make it easier for users of Yoxos (and us of course) to deploy new versions of software along with relevant updates. Traditional “.war” deployments are very monolithic and inflexible. The deployment model is simplistic as you only have to support a single version (which may be advantageous to some). But for our needs, we needed a more modular approach to the problem. Since we are not in the business of reinventing circular transportation devices, we started looking at some existing technologies to get as much mileage as possible – so we can concentrate on other neat features.

With Equinox p2, Eclipse already has a powerful provisioning component that performs updates and installation of components… on the client side. Our goal was to leverage the effort that has gone into p2 and adapt the technology to work on the server side. The results are quite promising – with a small amount of effort, we could create a very flexible, modular and robust deployment mechanism. Has anyone else worked with p2 on the server side yet?

Find out more about the technical details at our talk “Down with WAR. Server-side deployment with p2” at EclipseCon. Hope to see you there!

Tags: eclipsecon, p2, server, war

The “conversation” around #eclipsecon is really starting to pick up. If you are following the blogs but not twitter, then you are only getting half the news.

Checkout the EclipseCon birds nest. What’s a birds nest? You’ll have to join to find out .

Tags: eclipse, eclipsecon

Ok, it’s getting tough. Only 9 days left before EclipseCon officially starts. All contributors and committers around me are already swarming around to get the demos and presentations ready – besides fixing bugs for the upcoming M6 build. But why is everybody so excited about EclipseCon? I think the numerous talks are only one side of the coin. Personally the way more interesting part is the come-together of all people you know from bug reports, mailing lists and newsgroups. While it is nice to see each other, it often brings up great discussions about Eclipse technology – especially interesting for me: RAP and E4.

The number of BoFs this year is tremendous. If you’re developing RAP applications or planning to use RAP in the near future, you should definitly visit me and the rest of the team at the RAP BoF. As this is the first BoF for the RAP project we’re really excited to see who’s coming. If you’re planning to attend, why don’t you just add some of your ideas to the list of discussion topics? The intention of BoFs is that you have the chance to talk directly with the RAP committers and give the team the chance to see your standpoints. Take the chance to poke us for all the bugs we didn’t fix yet Or if you’re interested to see any of the long-standing feature requests to be added to the plan – no problem (at least if you have enough beer for the team)! We’re looking forward to some lively discussions – not just as part of the BoF!

Tags: bof, e4, eclipsecon, rap

Are you using RAP and attending EclipseCon?

First, as a RAP committer I would love to hear from you. Tell / show me what you built, what you liked, what was difficult. You can catch us in the sessions below, the RAP BOF or the EclipseSource booth.

Second, here’s an overview of all RAP-related sessions at the conference.

Monday

• Tutorial: “Single Sourcing RCP and RAP” – Desktop and web clients from a single code base  - Ralf Sternberg & Ruediger Herrmann, 8:00 – 12:00, Grand Ballroom C

Tuesday

• Automated tests for RAP applications – Benjamin Muskalla, 11:30 – 12:00, Room 209/210
• RAP or GWT: Which Java-Based AJAX Technology Is For You?, Dan Rubel & Mark Russell (Instantiations), 14:30 – 15:20, Great America Meeting Room 3
• e4 on RAP and SWT Browser Edition – Jochen Krause, 16:30 – 17:00, Room 209/210
• RAP BoF - Ruediger Herrmann, 20:45 – 22:00, Room 207

Wednesday

• Single Sourcing: Extend your RCP Application to the Web with RAP – Ralf Sternberg & Ruediger Herrmann, 10:10 – 11:00, Room 206
• Integrating BIRT in RAP applications – Benjamin Muskalla, 13:55 – 14:20, Room 209/210
• Styling RAP Applications – Ralf Sternberg, 17:10 – 17:20, Room 209/210

Thursday

• Using the Usage Data Collector in RAP and RCP Applications – Markus Knauer, 11:30 – 11:40, Grand Ballroom F
• MAT – Single Sourcing in practice – Benjamin Muskalla, 11:40 – 11:50, Grand Ballroom F

Missed one? Leave a comment.

See you at EclipseCon,
Elias.

Tags: eclipsecon, events, rap, talks

EclipseCon is quickly approaching, I know this because I’m running out of dates to schedule my Mylyn “Do EclipseCon Prep” task.  But even with all the work remaining, I’m very excited about this years program.   I have been going over the schedule, looking for talks and tutorials I really want to attend.  Here is where you are likely to find me.

On Sunday evening you will find me at the tweetup / blogger BoF.  This traditionally takes place in the bar and is always one of the highlights of EclipseCon.

On Monday morning, I’m torn between the RAP Tutorial and John Arthorne’s “Deep Dive into the Platform Resource Model“.  In the afternoon, “Distributed OSGi — The ECF Way” looks awesome, however, I will be helping to deliver the p2 tutorial at that time.

On Tuesday, after breakfast and the keynote, I will be attending the main stage “Runtime (r)evolution at Eclipse“.  After this, I will likely be running around between a bunch of talks. In particular, I am really excited about “OSGi Short Takes“, “e4 Project in Review“, “e4 Under the Covers“, “I Declare!“, “e4 UI in Practice” and “EMF Repository Workflows”

On Wednesday morning I will likely be hiding as a I prepare my talk on Zest which is happening during the “UI Component Showcase“. This likely means I can’t attend “OSGi for Eclipse Devleopers” , another promising session.  ”PDE State of the Union” and “Higher-level UI Programming” both really interest me, and sadly I will be forced to choose. The rest of the afternoon will likely consist of me bouncing between “Web to Desktop, desktop to web“, “The Modeled UI in Eclipse e4“, “What’s new in p2“, and of course “The Unbearable Stupidity of Modeling“.

On Thursday, Kevin and Tim’s keynote, “Darwin Among the IDEs“, is one of the most anticipated in my book.  Both of these gentlemen have an incredible resume when it comes to IDEs.  After this, I will likely head to the “Ask the AC (Panel)“, where I’m sure these fine men will be pressed on a number of issues related to Eclipse Architecture, project leadership and open source in general.  Before heading to the airport, I will try to catch a few more talks. In particular I will try to attend “Bringing GEF to the Web“, “Text 2 Models and Back Again” and the Martin’s talk on Teno and EclipseLink.

WOW!    Include BoFs, receptions and the early morning exercise, and this is going to be one packed week.  Looking over my schedule, I seemto gravatate towards talks on e4, modeling, UI development and OSGi.

What about you, what are you intersted in?  And if you haven’t registered for EclipseCon, why not? You can save $200 if you register before March 20th.

Tags: eclipsecon

EclipseCon is less than three weeks away. Everyone I talk to or work with is either finalizing work on M6 or working on EclipseCon presentations.  I’m surely biased but the program this year is arguably the best ever. Especially if you are a runtime type.  There are quite a number of talks on Equinox, p2, RAP, ECF, PDE, g-Eclipse and more.

What is really great is the number of joint talks and joint efforts around talks. Most of the 25 or so talks involving the EclipseSource team are joint with other committers from other companies. We’ve got the RAP guys working with the BIRT guys, the multi-national ECF team is using examples from the Runtime (r)evolution talk and I’ve been working with the EMF, Teneo and EclipseLink folks on some shared reusable demoware. The g-Eclipse guys are in on the game showing you how to do Equinox on the cloud. Of course, we are using the RFC 119 Distributed Services implementation from ECF wherever we can.

This should make for really informative and interesting talks that cover a wider range of the technologies that impact you.

I am particularly pumped that even in these hard financial times so many committers are still able to make it. EclipseSource is managing to send more than a dozen people and many others are gathering from their scarce resources to make sure they attend. Clearly EclipseCon is a must this year.  Have you registered yet?

Tags: eclipsecon

“A picture is worth a thousand words” – a true story.

The technology for impressive charts and reports already has a name in the mindset of Eclipse enthusiasts – it’s BIRT. But with the growing number of RAP applications in the wild, there is a big demand to integrate such technologies like BIRT into RAP applications. If you want to have nice colorful charts and good looking reports in your RAP application, why don’t you just drop in to the talk of Virgil Dodson and me about integrating BIRT into RAP. It’s not that hard, believe me!

We will give you advice how to avoid some of the common pitfalls and show you the possibilities you have to tweak your reports. Even if you want to single source your application with RCP, you can still use all the existing BIRT features as you know them. If you’re not yet familiar with the features of RAP itself, I think Ralf and Rüdiger would be glad to explain you all the details with hands-on examples in their tutorial on Monday.

It’s going to be a great conference. Register now and we’ll see you there.

Tags: BIRT, eclipsecon, rap, Single Sourcing