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IDE without projects and workspace [message #513499]

Wed, 10 February 2010 12:09

Florian Philipp

Messages: 43
Registered: February 2010

Member

Hi!

This is my first RCP project and I could need some help finding the right starting point for what I intend to do:

I'm trying to create a lightweight standalone IDE for a domain specific language we use in-house. Surprisingly enough, it took me less time to create the editor plugin using Xtext than to design the GUI around it.

In our use case, all source files lie on a Samba share with a three or four levels deep directory structure. I cannot allow to clutter this with Eclipse settings, project files etc. In fact, it would be great to get rid of the concept of projects altogether and only work with the directory structure and the files.

I thought this would be rather easy; all I need is some kind 'Resources' view where the root is an arbitrary path, not the workspace; but I just can't figure out how to do this with minimum effort.

Do I really need to create a whole new ViewPart or ContentProvider for this?
If I need to, how are the files and folders represented in Eclipse; IResource, IFile?

If it matters, I'm on Eclipse 3.5; Sun JDK 1.5.

Thanks in advance for any hints!

Florian Philipp

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Re: IDE without projects and workspace [message #513601 is a reply to message #513499]

Wed, 10 February 2010 16:21

Paul Webster

Messages: 6859
Registered: July 2009
Location: Ottawa

Senior Member

Florian Philipp wrote:
> I thought this would be rather easy; all I need is some kind 'Resources'
> view where the root is an arbitrary path, not the workspace; but I just
> can't figure out how to do this with minimum effort.
>
> Do I really need to create a whole new ViewPart or ContentProvider for
> this?
> If I need to, how are the files and folders represented in Eclipse;
> IResource, IFile?

resources are based on the workspace and that's what provides settings,
..project files, etc. You won't be able to re-use IResource/IFile etc.

It seems to me you have 4 choices.

1) use a workspace and create projects in there. But have your source
folder "linked" to where they live on the Samba share, so that the
eclipse project/resources info won't show up there

2) define your own Common Navigator view and provide your own content
provider that works with the file system FileStore and
org.eclipse.ui.ide.FileStoreEditorInput

3) create your own navigator view and embed a
org.eclipse.jface.viewers.TreeViewer, and then back your viewer model by
regular java io objects. Basically create your own file system
navigator. Use FileStoreEditorInput and IWorkbenchPage.openEditor(*) to
do it.

4) find someone that's done something similar that's has a consumable
license and work with that.

PW

--
Paul Webster
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform_Command_Framework
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Command_Core_Expressions
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Menu_Contributions
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Menus_Extension_Mapping
http://help.eclipse.org/galileo/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse .platform.doc.isv/guide/workbench.htm

Paul Webster
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform_Command_Framework
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Command_Core_Expressions
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Menu_Contributions

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