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Plugin for shared classes [message #508926]

Wed, 20 January 2010 12:53

Eclipse User

Hi,

I've been developing an IDE for a proprietary language for the past few months. It consists of an editor, a common navigator, and lots of other features.

However, I've determined that it's a little difficult now to proceed because the plugin.xml file is quite large and I'd like to split the common navigator view I developed into a separate plugin.

This presents a new challenge to me as there are some packages and classes that are shared by the common navigator view and the editor. How might I address this? Should I make a 3rd plugin for common code that is accessed by both the main plugin and the cnf view plugin?

Any thoughts here are greatly appreciated - thank you!
Joey

Re: Plugin for shared classes [message #509605 is a reply to message #508926]

Sat, 23 January 2010 10:09

Eclipse User

I'm not claiming to be much of an expert but I've a number of plug-ins which have dependencies on one another. If you have plugin A which may have a package a.b.c and plug-in B needs it, then you can export it from plugin A with the Export-Package statement in MANIFEST.MF
e.g

Export-Package: a.b.c

You then add plug-in A as dependency of plug-in B using the 'Required Plug-Ins' page of the Plug In Manifest Editor.

In your case you must decide whether the editor is the 'base' or the CNF is the 'base'. I suspect you'll find that the plugin with the CNF will probably depend upon the editor. If you find that you have circular dependencies then its probably best to create a 3rd project with packages to resolve this case and make that a 'library' plug-in.

I found the following link on Google:

http://owl-eclipse.projects.semwebcentral.org/CreateLibraryP lugin.html

HTH

Re: Plugin for shared classes [message #509793 is a reply to message #509605]

Mon, 25 January 2010 07:51

Eclipse User

Alan,

Thanks for the info and the link. I will definitely make use of the package-exporting and plug-in dependency trick.

And that link is great - I don't think I'll use it this time around, but I have a feeling that's going to come in handy soon!

Joey

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