Graphiti Integration [message #663960] |
Wed, 06 April 2011 19:04  |
Eclipse User |
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Hi guys...
Has anything been written up about the Graphiti integration with Sapphire? I just started playing with it a bit and have run into some entertaining limitations.
For example, I can only define graphical nodes for properties of the root element of my model. If I try creating one for a child property (the next level down), it complains that the property doesn't exist in the root element. Is there a way to nest these perhaps?
Really that's what I'm after - showing some kind of containment hierarchy in a box within a box approach. Something similar to the node/node-list hierarchy for the Form Editor Page definition.
Obviously it's very early in the process for the Graphiti integration pieces. But there's been some movement lately in the Architecture and Map editor samples, so I'm hopeful there will be more to play with soon.
I still think Sapphire could very well be the holy grail of editor frameworks uniting many technologies in a consistent way. Gotta love it.
Keep up the great work guys!
--Fitz
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Re: Graphiti Integration [message #664445 is a reply to message #664440] |
Fri, 08 April 2011 17:59   |
Eclipse User |
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Konstantin Komissarchik wrote on Fri, 08 April 2011 17:23 | Sure. Take a look at SapphireEditor class and getModelElement() method. You can weave Sapphire pages with non-Sapphire pages in the same editor. Of course, building a graphical editor from scratch isn't exactly trivial, even with Graphiti...
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Yeah, understood. And thanks.
Konstantin Komissarchik wrote on Fri, 08 April 2011 17:23 | It would help us to know if you have moved beyond proof of concept stage on this. If we knew that you are planning on adopting Sapphire in a given product release, we could conceivable give higher priority to some of the bigger enhancement requests from you (like the diagram in a node).
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Well, I would certainly say I'm impressed with the framework. It's extremely useful as it is right now. So yes, I think I can say with little doubt (have to discuss it some with Max, my boss, and our releng folks) that I'd like to include this Switchyard editor with our release due out in early 2011 based on the Indigo release.
It wouldn't be a supported product yet, but it would be an experimental editor for a platform that's quickly gaining some speed. And probably available in JBoss Tools or as a separate download.
I'll have to chat with a few folks to see if that's possible or not, but it should be doable.
My concerns are the same as many devs - it's a young framework with potential to change drastically along the way. When do you see it maturing to a 1.0 release? Obviously post-Indigo I'm guessing. If you continue to add functionality and yet keep it fairly stable, it would be an easier sell. So far that's been the case, but since I'm consuming nightly builds pretty regularly I'm taking the risks. 
Are there any other devs/companies (beyond me at RH/JBoss and you guys at Oracle) looking at adopting Sapphire? You mentioned you were already building and supporting some Oracle tools on it when we chatted at EclipseCon...
--Fitz
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Re: Graphiti Integration [message #664457 is a reply to message #664445] |
Fri, 08 April 2011 21:21  |
Eclipse User |
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> I'll have to chat with a few folks to see if that's possible or not, but it
> should be doable.
Ok. Please keep us in the loop as your plans evolve.
> My concerns are the same as many devs - it's a young framework
> with potential to change drastically along the way.
Well, not young, just young at Eclipse. Sapphire has been in development and shipping in various BEA/Oracle product releases for roughly five years now.
> When do you see it maturing to a 1.0 release? Obviously
> post-Indigo I'm guessing.
Yes, definitely post-Indigo. The 0.3 release will ship concurrently with Indigo, but will not be in the common repository (we are not part of the release train). The 1.0 question comes down to project graduation criteria. One criteria that I have placed is a major non-Oracle adopter. You may very well bring that.
> If you continue to add functionality and yet keep it fairly stable,
> it would be an easier sell. So far that's been the case, but since
> I'm consuming nightly builds pretty regularly I'm taking the risks.
You can expect every Sapphire release to be stable. Obviously there is more risk of running into a bug if you track integration builds, but the need to do that should diminish over time.
In terms of API, you can expect Sapphire to behave very differently in this regard than other Eclipse projects. In particular, I do not wish to fall into the trap of never shipping an API breaking release. The framework needs to be able to evolve before and after the 1.0 release. To make this easier on adopters, we plan to do the following:
1. All runtime components will be non-singleton (in OSGi sense). That means that plugins of two adopters on different versions of Sapphire can co-exist in the same install. We aren't quite there yet, but are making progress. This is a 1.0 criteria.
2. We will continue to produce service releases on all past major releases as long as needed by adopters who haven't migrated to the latest release.
3. Every API-breaking release will come with a detailed migration guide. We have already started the practice of putting these together. You can see the 0.2 and the in-progress 0.3 one in the Sapphire Developer Guide in help.
> Are there any other devs/companies (beyond me at RH/JBoss
> and you guys at Oracle) looking at adopting Sapphire?
Not that I know of. There have been questions on this forum, but I haven't seen evidence of anyone else moving beyond questions.
> You mentioned you were already building and supporting some
> Oracle tools on it when we chatted at EclipseCon...
Oracle Enterprise Pack for Eclipse (the JBoss IDE analog) has at least six good size editors built using Sapphire along with a menagerie of dialogs, wizards and views. We have basically stopped hand-coding GUIs in the last couple of years. The last OEPE release shipped on Sapphire 0.2.1 and the next feature release will ship on 0.3.x. For that release, we are working on two more editors. These will take advantage of diagram support.
- Konstantin
[Updated on: Fri, 08 April 2011 21:23] by Moderator
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