Home » Eclipse Projects » Equinox » Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile
| Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile [message #15197] |
Sat, 22 March 2003 18:01  |
Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: texierb.bigfoot.com
Hi,
I really enjoy the coming out of the equinox project.
I'm currently in charge of designing an end user trading application and I
seriously investigate eclipse as the core plateform to do it (as i already
intensively use it for developpement).
But to really be suitable eclipse seems to lack few "features":
- a strong dynamic plugin / component model
I was glad to learn that you 're handling this issue.
- a user login mechanism to activate a subset of deployed plugin based on
the user profile:
As an example we have roughly 200 users that can be grouped in 5
differents profiles (sales, traders, middle office agents, back office
agents, administrators,...)
We want to deploy the same application to al of then (to ensure Look &
Feel, Core features, transerval service are all the same) but we need a
mechanism to activate feature on a user profile basis.
Currently, at start up, eclipse activate the same subset of plugins
for all users (since there's no user concept in the core runtime).
- a way to silently upload, install, and activate plugins to use plateform
update in a large business production environment.
Currently, installing a new feature requires the user interaction.
Do you think the two last would be issues of interest for the equinox
project?
If eclipse could provide such mechanisms it would probably become the most
interesting framework for vertical business domain applications in the java
world.
Best Regards.
Benoit Texier
Technical Architect.
Societe General Investment Banking
www.sigb.com
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| Re: Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile [message #15232 is a reply to message #15197] |
Sun, 23 March 2003 22:19  |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: jeff_mcaffer_REMOVE.ca.ibm.com
Benoit,
Thanks for your interest in Equinox. User models/notions are one of those
"easy" problems that are really hard to get right. Your usecase is
interesting in that (as I understand it) you do not really need a notion of
user but rather one of "role". In such and such a role the user would get
some set of features/plugins. In some other role, they would get a
different set. I believe that you can effectively do this now though it is
manual. This issue may come up in Equinox as a way of managing large
feature/plugin sets but it is not a mainline concern. In the even that it
does not come up, I suggest that you enter a feature request in the
update/install component of the Eclipse platform project.
Update install push (which is what I think you are after with your third
point) is also one of those issues which may come up in Equinox but is not
currently on the table. Again, please ensure that you have detailed your
requirements in a feature request in update/install.
Better yet, for both of these, why not write/prototype the code and
contribute it to the platform project?!
Jeff
"Benoit Texier" <texierb@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:b5ipt7$d5t$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Hi,
>
> I really enjoy the coming out of the equinox project.
>
> I'm currently in charge of designing an end user trading application and I
> seriously investigate eclipse as the core plateform to do it (as i already
> intensively use it for developpement).
> But to really be suitable eclipse seems to lack few "features":
> - a strong dynamic plugin / component model
> I was glad to learn that you 're handling this issue.
> - a user login mechanism to activate a subset of deployed plugin based on
> the user profile:
> As an example we have roughly 200 users that can be grouped in 5
> differents profiles (sales, traders, middle office agents, back office
> agents, administrators,...)
> We want to deploy the same application to al of then (to ensure Look &
> Feel, Core features, transerval service are all the same) but we need a
> mechanism to activate feature on a user profile basis.
> Currently, at start up, eclipse activate the same subset of plugins
> for all users (since there's no user concept in the core runtime).
> - a way to silently upload, install, and activate plugins to use plateform
> update in a large business production environment.
> Currently, installing a new feature requires the user interaction.
>
> Do you think the two last would be issues of interest for the equinox
> project?
>
> If eclipse could provide such mechanisms it would probably become the most
> interesting framework for vertical business domain applications in the
java
> world.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Benoit Texier
> Technical Architect.
> Societe General Investment Banking
> www.sigb.com
>
>
>
>
>
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| Re: Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile [message #15462 is a reply to message #15331] |
Mon, 24 March 2003 16:33 |
| Eclipse User |
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Christophe Elek wrote:
> "Jeff McAffer" <jeff_mcaffer_REMOVE@ca.ibm.com> wrote in
> news:b5ltcc$s12$1@rogue.oti.com:
>
>
>>Benoit,
>>
>>Thanks for your interest in Equinox. User models/notions are one of
>>those "easy" problems that are really hard to get right. Your usecase
>>is interesting in that (as I understand it) you do not really need a
>>notion of user but rather one of "role". In such and such a role the
>>user would get some set of features/plugins. In some other role, they
>>would get a different set. I believe that you can effectively do this
>>now though it is manual. This issue may come up in Equinox as a way
>>of managing large feature/plugin sets but it is not a mainline
>>concern. In the even that it does not come up, I suggest that you
>>enter a feature request in the update/install component of the Eclipse
>>platform project.
>>
>>Update install push (which is what I think you are after with your
>>third point) is also one of those issues which may come up in Equinox
>>but is not currently on the table. Again, please ensure that you have
>>detailed your requirements in a feature request in update/install.
>>
>>Better yet, for both of these, why not write/prototype the code and
>>contribute it to the platform project?!
>>
>>Jeff
>
>
> I agree with Jeff about opening a feature in Install/Update
> We included such a scenario in our design.
> the -platform <platform configuration URL> is our starting point for such a
> feature.
> Your user can point to a central URL <server logic> that will return the
> appropriate list of feature they can access.
> Right now there is no runtime-restriction or policy to prevent any user to
> run any feature found on the site. The best we can do as of now is
> filtering which feature are enabled or not based on user setup.
>
I haven't tried it, but I'm wondering if the '-install' option could be
used to point different users to different installation feature sets?
On a unix machine, it would not be too hard to setup different eclipse
installations each with different features based on role. Then, instead
of having the user directly execute eclipse.exe, have them execute a
script that executes eclipse.exe with the -install option pointing to
the appropriate installation for that user.
'Not sure how this maps to the win NT/2k/XP case.
Just a thought on a near term fix for Benoit's scenario.
For the longer term, I think that Eclipse needs to gain some sense of
user authentication (i.e. using JAAS) and profiled behavior to be used
for developing some types of applications.
Mel
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| Re: Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile [message #16556 is a reply to message #15462] |
Fri, 28 March 2003 09:43 |
| Eclipse User |
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Mel Martinez <melm@us.ibm.com> wrote in news:b5ntg3$9fk$1@rogue.oti.com:
> I haven't tried it, but I'm wondering if the '-install' option could be
> used to point different users to different installation feature sets?
Yes, but you then bypass the confirguration. -install (if my memory serves
me well) is used to point to a place where the platfom can find boot and
other plugins. Where -configuration points to a file that contains all the
info you need.
> On a unix machine, it would not be too hard to setup different eclipse
> installations each with different features based on role. Then, instead
> of having the user directly execute eclipse.exe, have them execute a
> script that executes eclipse.exe with the -install option pointing to
> the appropriate installation for that user.
yes, but I would use -configuration... now, there are API to create your
own configuration. See IPlatformConfiguration. Check who uses them and you
will find how to use them.
> 'Not sure how this maps to the win NT/2k/XP case.
>
> Just a thought on a near term fix for Benoit's scenario.
>
> For the longer term, I think that Eclipse needs to gain some sense of
> user authentication (i.e. using JAAS) and profiled behavior to be used
> for developing some types of applications.
how do you feel about entering userid/password when launching eclipse ? In
the VisualAge time, people didn;t like it much. I suppose we can rely on
the userid/password they use to log on the machine. Then the -configuration
can point to a URL. The server side will then authenticate and return the
appropriate Stream... thoughts ?
> Mel
>
--
Christophe Elek
Eclipse Project
http://www.eclipse.org
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| Re: Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile [message #16604 is a reply to message #15197] |
Fri, 28 March 2003 12:15 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: ogruber.us.ibm.com
Salut Benoit and bienvenue!
No need to apologize for your english...
from another french guy of course... :-)
More seriously, this is an interesting line of thinking here regarding what
is
installed and what is enabled. Sounds to me that the core support
belongs to the platform.
I don't like relying on a -configuration for this... too error-prone
and basically no security control... also, how long before one user
can log as different roles? My guess not long... like in Unix
where I can "su" to someone else identity.
But it shouldn't be that hard to add to the platform the notion of
roles, controlled through passwords... based on which roles are
enabled, features are enabled or disabled... great usage of the
dynamic registry behavior.
Of course, one can argue this is more an administrative issue
and that an administrative plugin could load/unload features
based on active roles... This would require a permission
framework for controlling who can load/unload features.
But this seems to be quite costly... if the end users can switch
roles dynamically... loading/unloading features will not be a
light-weight process... but internally in the platform, we should be
able to "disable features" such as forbidding to create extensions...
and disable extension points... Hence, if the plugins in those features
go systematically through the registry to interact... everything is ok.
We can add also protocols to UI to revoke the extensions from
the disabled plugins... but without actually unloading the features...
Then, unloading becomes more an optimization than a requirement.
Best regards,
--
Olivier Gruber, Ph.D.
Persistent & Distributed Object Platforms and Frameworks
IBM TJ Watson Research Center
"Benoit Texier" <texierb@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:b5ipt7$d5t$1@rogue.oti.com...
> Hi,
>
> I really enjoy the coming out of the equinox project.
>
> I'm currently in charge of designing an end user trading application and I
> seriously investigate eclipse as the core plateform to do it (as i already
> intensively use it for developpement).
> But to really be suitable eclipse seems to lack few "features":
> - a strong dynamic plugin / component model
> I was glad to learn that you 're handling this issue.
> - a user login mechanism to activate a subset of deployed plugin based on
> the user profile:
> As an example we have roughly 200 users that can be grouped in 5
> differents profiles (sales, traders, middle office agents, back office
> agents, administrators,...)
> We want to deploy the same application to al of then (to ensure Look &
> Feel, Core features, transerval service are all the same) but we need a
> mechanism to activate feature on a user profile basis.
> Currently, at start up, eclipse activate the same subset of plugins
> for all users (since there's no user concept in the core runtime).
> - a way to silently upload, install, and activate plugins to use plateform
> update in a large business production environment.
> Currently, installing a new feature requires the user interaction.
>
> Do you think the two last would be issues of interest for the equinox
> project?
>
> If eclipse could provide such mechanisms it would probably become the most
> interesting framework for vertical business domain applications in the
java
> world.
>
> Best Regards.
>
> Benoit Texier
> Technical Architect.
> Societe General Investment Banking
> www.sigb.com
>
>
>
>
>
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| Re: Plugin (or Feature) Activation and User Profile [message #18569 is a reply to message #18562] |
Tue, 01 April 2003 08:58 |
| Eclipse User |
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Originally posted by: Peter.Kriens.aQute.se
Christophe Elek wrote:
> pkriens <Peter.Kriens@aQute.se> wrote in news:3E8802A3.6080900@aQute.se:
>>We therefore
>>developed an API that can be used by a dynamic plugin to define this
>>policy. This has worked very well in practice.
> You mean the policy is per plugin ? Can I, as an administrator, override it
No I meant to say that there is a dynamic plugin that defines the
overall eclipse management policies. In OSGi we call this the management
agent. One can write a GUI application that handles everything local or
one can write an agent that is controlled from a central manager.
Kind regards,
Peter Kriens
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