If Lotus Notes would quote properly, this would be easier, but here goes:
You are assuming that the optional/ide/VAJ*.class files are going to be in ant.jar. They will only exist (for the immediate future anyway) in optional.jar, and thats only if you or I or some other kind soul contributes it when a release is built. Otherwise, the only way to build those classes is to import them into the IDE. So yes, you are right that in a release build, it will probably work pretty closely with what you are describing. But in any sort of development situation these extra steps are necessary. The default.ini file - don't require the user to write anything themselves if they don't have to. I'd leave it alone and just fix up the docs. Trapping System.out - this really should be fixed, but its up to you. If you are getting output in a window, you don't expect chunks of pertinent output to show up on the console. People don't write <echo> tasks if they don't want to see output. If you don't fix it, I'd put a big warning in the docs. Whats really bugging me about this is packaging. How do we best orgainize this to fit into the standard Ant distribution? I need to think a little on this one (too little sleep and I've sworn off caffine... :-[ ). Glenn McAllister Software Developer. IBM Toronto Lab, (416) 448-3805 "An approximate answer to the right question is better than the right answer to the wrong question." - John W. Tukey Please respond to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> cc: Subject: RE: [submit] Integration of Ant into Visual Age for Java Glenn McAllister wrote: > I'm checking out your plugin now. Its looking pretty good, but I've found > the following nits: > > The install instructions need a lot more detail. I had to import the > three plugin .java files to the IDE, and the rest of the VAJ*.java > files, then export them to the ide/tools/org-apache-tools-ant directory. What I was trying to describe was a way to install Ant as tool without having to import it into your Workspace. Most of our VA users won't want to change Ant; they just need a way to deploy their applications. At the moment it doesn't work the way I described it, because my classes aren't in the distribution, but when they get into the (binary) distribution, shouldn't it suffice to extract the ant.jar and some XML parser into the ide/tools/org-apache-tools-ant directory? Anyway it's a good idea to include the import->export approach as a second way to install the tool. > The file vajanttool.ini doesn't exist. The default.ini file was in the > doc directory and had to be copied over to the org-apache-tools-ant > directory. My fault. I'm now considering to put the default.ini content in the manual and advising the user to create a new default.ini with that content. What do You think? > The gui only shows you targets that have descriptions. That was intentional, but I forgot to document it. > The logger doesn't trap System.out, so echo messages go to > the Console, not the log window. We didn't want to put too much effort into the GUI. Would documenting this bug be enough :-)? Thanks for Your feedback! Wolf
