Clinton,
I think it would be difficult to build something independently of Eclipse without foregoing a lot of the benefits of the tooling. Eclipse provides an object-oriented view of your java projects that not only allows you to work with the code without dealing with string manipulation, etc, but also provides things like an event model for notification of file modifications.
Also, the environment provides JFace based frameworks to assist with things like wizards, text-editing and preference management, among others. I think a lot of the power of an eclipse plugin is derived from it being an eclipse plugin :)
However, could some components be abstracted out of the IDE and deployed using the Rich Client Platform? Possibly, but I'm not certain there would be any added value in that. In that case, it would probably be reduced to a simple gui for presenting and editing xml files. I had envisioned something that integrated with your java projects and did things like automatic generating of a resultmap stub for a java class (right-click on a class, click Generate Result Map). That could reduce some tedium (and mistyping of class and field names).
As far as integration with other IDE's I'm really an eclipse fan and I hate swing and awt. I don't really have enough knowledge of other environments to discuss options there.
If you're considering the .NET folks, if someone has some experience with the Visual Studio environment, we could discuss writing various aspects of the project (particularly with regard to the object model) that may be written for easy translation to .NET. My brother is a .NET guy, and I'll try to discuss some options with him.
As far as the design and features, I'd definitely like to hear what people would like to see. At a high level, I can see two approaches, one based on just working with one physical xml file at a time. Another based on loading all the xml files for an iBatis configuration into a namespace oriented logical model (which just maintained links back to the physical structure). The physical approach may be simpler to implement, but the logical model would provide cross-namespace referential integrity and I think may prove, ultimately, the more powerful and elegant approach. I haven't used iBatis very much, but admire the approach and like the implementation, so I absolutely could use others input on the feature list.
Thanks,
Ken
Clinton Begin wrote:
Ken,
If you do write a plugin, keep in mind that you will capture a wider audience by allowing it to be used independently of Eclipse too. This will be a test of your design skills. Can you make an independent tool that also cleanly integrates with Eclipse? ;-)
Cheers, Clinton
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 21:35:02 -0700, Larry Meadors
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Not that I know of.
That would quickly elevate you to the status of "Open-Source Hero" in my book, if you are looking for someone to help test it, let me know. :)
Larry
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 19:19:25 -0600, Ken Katsma <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Has anyone started work on an eclipse plugin for iBatis? I've looked around but haven't been able to find anything.
If no one has, I may start building something myself.
