Hi all, [snip] > It occurs to me that there may be more users than there are > programmers. So, I'm looking to find out if there is a suite of tools that > are "ready out of the box" and don't require writing scripts,... I don't [snip]
> When I think of tools, I don't mean scripts - rather something that is GUI > based that can be run and is intuitive. Scripts usually aren't > intuitive. When I hear scripts, I think of many scripts that have to be > run one after that other. Even this is something that would be good in a > gui - something to manage the repetitive tasks. There is the possibility of using a 'tooling platform' as a base upon which to develop a standard set of GUI based tools. The IDE provided by www.eclipse.org is described as a universal tool platform, or an open and extensible IDE for anything and nothing in particular. The IDE provides a framework (heavy lifting taken care of) for building GUI based plugins which extend the functionality of the IDE itself. In a nutshell, it is a plugin builder that allows itself to be heavily customised and deployed. The plugins can be scripted using Netscape's JavaScript or written in Java. Once the plugins have been developed, the IDE is customized, branded with logos, "distrofied" and deployed with the plugins as part of the distro. The result is a custom application (made up of plugins) that contains its own build environment. Furthermore, the application is automatically extensible because it inherits the extensible features of the underlying IDE. Neat, huh ? Actually, it is more then neat IMHO. The value of the tooling platform approach is that you have a platform for users and developers. The users use the platform to run the plugins and the developers use the *same* platform to develop the plugins. If you're interested head on over to www.eclipse.org and download a shiny new build. --Mario Gianota _______________________________________________ Biojava-l mailing list - [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://biojava.org/mailman/listinfo/biojava-l
