This is mostly unorganized thought... There are four primary features that I feel I currently benefit from eclipse in everyday use 1) syntax highlighting 2) code assist 3) search 4) Referencing (outline and "open declaration"
#1 and #2 I see as likely simple to implement in regards to a web app #3 is a bit hairy as my skills in this topic in general is limited perhaps others have more experience, knowledge in it #4 is absent when dealing with XML files in eclipse, especially with OFBiz's component:// path syntax, but is second nature when OFBiz is processing the call to the reference. This is the primary reason why we _might want to explore the idea. If the previously mentioned plugin is still in its planning stages and no real investment of resources has gone into it, a web based solution may be worth looking into as there are, I would suspect, a smaller number of people who understand the OFBiz needs and the plugin environment compared to the people who understand the OFBiz needs and the OFBiz environment. With more and more good examples of menu, tree, form widges and simple-methods that we've gained over the last year, you can get pretty far in OFBiz without ever having to touch java. If you don't have to touch java, you can develop fully in runtime (provided you can reload components and services). If you can develop fully in runtime, you can quickly create scripts and such to build web apps in a Ruby on Railsesque sort of way with a GUI (so yeah, you'd have a framework on a framework ;-) ). As for why I personally would prefer a web-based tool over a desktop application for OFBiz development ease. 1) Neither exists. 2) I would like to use such a tool (in either environment). 3) While I understand Java, I am very slow in writing it, however much faster in OFBiz tools 4) Because we must be the change that we want to see in the world I would like to contribute an effort to bring about this tool. 5) Because of #3, I can contribute quite a bit to the development of such a tool in a webapp environment, but very little in a plugin environment. I don't want to get too far down the thought process. Just testing the waters for interest/do-ability for now. Thanks! Chris --- "David E. Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I guess I'm missing something here: why would we want to use a web- > based tool that is part of OFBiz instead of a desktop application, > namely a plugin to a development environment? > > -David > > > On Mar 21, 2007, at 9:09 PM, Chris Howe wrote: > > > There was some talk a while back about creating an Eclipse plugin > for > > OFBiz. How is that effort coming along? I ask because it is > becoming > > easier and easier to use rich AJAX tools inside OFBiz that it may > be > > within reach and reason to talk about creating a web application to > > develop OFBiz applications. > > > > The benefit of an eclipse tool would be the ability to jump from > say a > > screen to a referenced location. That seems like a rather straight > > forward task from a web application. Freemarker makes it rather > > simple > > to arrange an xml source so that you could focus on particular > aspects > > of development. The only thing that I'm seeing that might make it > > difficult is the ability to load/unload services and components on > the > > fly. > > > > What does the community think? Does the content manager tackle > > some of > > this? Would a ofbiz.home/development be appropriate? Is this a > much > > larger task than it appears? Is there any interest? > >
