Eclipse Plug-in

[fcohen]

Operate TestMaker as a plug-in to Eclipse.

[fcohen]

Todd Bradfute wrote:

I've drunk the "Eclipse" coolaid. What do you think about having a TestMaker plugin to Eclipse? Maybe it's not the top priority for your engineers, but that IDE feels so much cleaner than the ¿Netbeans? Interface that TM5 uses.

Frank Cohen replied:

I could really use your help in designing the TestMaker Eclipse plug-in. http://bugs.pushtotest.com/ticket/52 is for the plug-in. I have little experience using Eclipse. If you would write-up a requirements list and a mini-design I have the engineers to implement the Eclipse plug-in.

[fcohen]

A medium-size prospective customer sent us an request-for-proposal that includes using PushToTest TestMaker as an Eclipse plug-in. Nothing like the scent of a sale to get us motivated! :-)

Eclipse 3.3.1 is a very nice IDE package. My Eclipse experiences goes back to when IBM was calling it IBM Workshop. IBM built a Web service IDE on Workshop and the resulting projecting was hideous. The user interface featured dozens of modes, strange menu configurations, and often the basic features did not operate correctly. The Eclipse group and IBM have accomplished a very nice renovation since the old days.

Eclipse 3.3.1 also has an available version specifically for building Eclipse plug-ins. The Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment (PDE) is at http://www.eclipse.org/home/categories/rcp.php.

I am attaching screen mock-ups of PushToTest integration with Eclipse for your review. I will attach a requirements list to this ticket in the next few days. I am also bumping-up the priority.

-Frank

[fcohen]

TestMaker Eclipse Plug-in Screen Shot Mockup

[fcohen]

Simon Tuffs offers the following as a temporary workaround to have PushToTest TestMaker run in Eclipse. This is valid until we deliver the real Eclipse Plug-in. Thanks Simon! -Frank

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Simon Tuffs wrote:

1) Checkout the TM5 product tree from CVS.

2) Create a new Eclipse Java project based on sources in that tree. Select the source directories that you want to compile and debug in Eclipse. Select all jar files under /lib, except TestMaker, TestNode, TestNodeClient?, and tool.jar for the project classpath.

3) Build the TestMaker distribution using Ant (inside Eclipse will work). This makes the JAXB bindings which are needed for Eclipse compilation.

4) Create a launch configuration for TestMaker5. The main class is com.pushtotest.testmaker.Main, set the working directory to a valid installation of TestMaker. Make sure not to have TestMaker, TestNode, TestNodeClienet? and tool.jar on the classpath.

5) Create a launch configuration for a TestNode. This is just a Jetty server and the main entry point is org.mortbay.xml.XmlConfiguration?. Set the program arguments to etc/jetty.xml and the VM arguments to -DSTOP.PORT=8079 -DSTOP.KEY=secret. Set the classpath to point to all the jars in the TestNetwork?/WEB-INF/lib, except the TestMaker, TestNode, TestNodeClient? and tool.jar files.

6) Start TestNode

7) Start TestMaker. Expect TestMaker to fail to start a node because the TestNode is already running.

[fcohen]

William created a good first draft at a design document for this project. Please fine it at:

http://downloads.pushtotest.com/tm5/PushToTest_EclipsePlugin_Design.pdf

We would appreciate your thoughts, comments, and criticisms on the design.

Thanks.

-Frank

[root]

Milestone release deleted

[fcohen]

The Eclipse plug-in project brought together a lot of different ideas. Most of these ideas centered around making PushToTest more user friendly. The Eclipse plug-in is one of three ways PushToTest will deploy its user interface: Java SWING desktop application, Eclipse plug-in, and Ajax browser client. I opened another ticket to cover the things these three efforts will have in common:

http://bugs.pushtotest.com/ticket/220

-Frank