Every once in a while something just doesn't happen to be as intiutive as you would have liked it to be. Lately I was trying to contribute a simple command based toggle button to the workbench. Although it is simple to actually provide the menu contribution and to put the button in visual "toggle" mode, it was so straight forward to actually obtain the state...
Read MoreI just recieved my EclipseCon 2009 Registration confirmation. Here are my talks that were accepted: My workbench on your desktop? The Yoxos OnDemand free download configurator. Down with WAR. Server-side deployment with p2 EPP Wizard - The Future for Custom Eclipse Downloads I'm looking forward to meet you all there at the conference. Don't forget to vote for the committer shirt contest, book your Hotel and bring your power outlet adapters...
Read MoreThis semester my wife gives a lecture in theoretical computer science at the KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology). The current topic is decidability and therefor the students learn about the halting problem. The whole topic is rather dry and good examples for illustration are always welcome. One example I liked is the question whether a program is a virus or not. As a proof, you could...
Read MoreI used what little free time I had over the holidays to catch up on the recent developments in source control management systems, which have been quite interesting to follow. Especially the arrival of Distributed Version Control Systems has caused quite a buzz in the software development industry. Somehow Eclipse as a whole totally missed the SVN boat. Only in the last year has there been...
Read MoreThere seems to be a lot of interest in doing distributed services with OSGi/Equinox, and so I wanted to begin a series of postings about what the ECF project is doing in this area (short story: a lot), and what we are planning for supporting standardization via RFC 119. What is RFC 119? First, here is the OSGi 4.2 early draft, which includes a draft of RFC...
Read MoreIf you want to make a custom look&feel for an RCP or RAP application you have no choice other than to write a new Presentation. But if you've already worked with the Presentation API, I would bet that you're not too happy with it. The only option the API gives you is to make StackPresentations, but what about other components like the ToolBar or MenuBar? There...
Read MoreI was working with a client recently and the question of what are execution environments came up. Execution environments (EEs) are simply symbolic representations of JREs. For example, rather than talking about a specific JRE (with a specific name at a specific location on your disk), you can talk about the J2SE-1.4 execution environment. This way things can be shared without referencing specific paths. Furthermore,...
Read MoreI can't count how many times I have come across developers that aren't using project level settings. It makes me a bit sad in the beginning, but once I show people what you can do with project level settings, I'm immediately filled with glee. Why should you use project level settings? The main reason is that you can enforce these settings all across your team...
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