Hey guys,
I have changed the framework launching code in Main to try to eliminate
some need for configuration. The idea is to have the launcher work a
little bit like File Install in that it automatically will install and
start any bundles found in the "bundle" directory. No existing
functionality has been removed and for the most part it should look very
similar to the previous behavior.
The benefit here is we no longer need to configure the felix.auto.start
property to auto deploy the bundles in the "bundle" directory. If you
want to add/remove bundles, you just add/remove them to/from the
"bundle" directory. This is intended to be much simpler than File
Install and only takes effect at framework startup with no monitoring of
the directory at run time. (I originally thought about using File
Install, but after a spate of threading issues with File Install in
JIRA, I felt it was maybe too much.)
Currently, the only real noticeable change is that we now use the
absolute path as the location of the installed bundle, rather than a
relative path. This could cause some exceptions for existing caches, but
they will still function. (We had some issues with File Install and
relative URLs previously, so this change will work better with that in
the future I think.)
One issue I was wondering about is whether or not I should make the
launcher perform an update on bundles in the "bundle" directory when
they are already installed. This would be a change from previous
behavior, which always just installed so you would only see the existing
installed bundle even if you changed the target. It seems like this
could be convenient, but not strictly necessary. What do you think?
I do not think doing an uninstall of missing bundles would be a good
idea, though. The whole point is to provide a simple, configuration-less
way to get bundles into your framework at startup, i.e., a replacement
for felix.auto.start. I don't want to create a complex provisioning
solution...that is a separate project.
I'd like to get this wrapped up quickly, so any input is welcome. Thanks.
-> richard
