RE: [cdt-patch] fix for Bug#: 63973

[Sean Evoy <sevoy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Chris,
I am so sorry; this one completely slipped
my mind. I had some concerns about the direction applying this patch would
take us, so I wanted to defer discussing it, if possible, until after the
2.0 release.

History 1:
When we were tossing around the types
of options we needed to implement a toolchain, the value of a string option
was never intended to be browsed to, which is why I simply ignore the XML
tag if it is set in the plugin file. The string option was intended to
be a "catch-all" sort of option where the user could mix different
types of flags and no parsing or checking would be applied to the contents.
I did accept a specialization of this control earlier in the release cycle
so that a hard-coded prefix could be prepended to the contents of the control,
but at the time, we discussed whether we should also enable correctness
checking and what to do with a user who put more than one entry in the
control (which we cannot stop because we don't have a way of checking the
entry). At the time, the decision was that getting a prefix in was sufficient,
the default would be to apply the prefix to the first entry, and that we
would deal with problems as they arose. 

History 2:
The round-tripping of options is the
real basis for my concern, though. Really, it seemed like such a good idea
with very little down-side. However, it raises user expectations that the
order they specify in that control will be respected on the command line.
This is not guaranteed and I have to admit that it wasn't a use-case I
considered when I evaluated the patch because the compilers I test on are
order-insensitive. So, having learned my lesson; I will not apply UI patches
late in the game until I understand exactly what we are trying to do and
whether there are alternatives.

Discussion:
In no particular order, here are some
things I need to get sorted out about adding a browse button. Is a string
option with a browse button a one-line/single-entry list option control?
If so, then should we be massaging that control to handle the requirement.
Is it a specialized string option control, in which case we need to decide
once and for all if we will optionally check content, allow multiple entries,
apply the prefix to all the entries, etc. Of course, on the upside, this
may be a brilliant solution for how to inter-leave libraries and lib search
paths for linkers that are order sensitive. I just do not know what problem
we are tying to solve.

Anyway, if you can wait until we go
GA, I want to have a con-call between all the people who have committed
to the managed build in this release, and come up with a strategy to get
this feature done (yes, done) by 2.1.

Sean Evoy
Rational Software - IBM Software Group
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

"Recoskie, Chris" <crecoskie@xxxxxx>
Sent by: cdt-patch-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx

06/07/2004 10:19 AM

Please respond to
cdt-patch

To	<cdt-patch@xxxxxxxxxxx>
cc
Subject	RE: [cdt-patch] fix for Bug#:  63973

Just wondering the status of
this…
 
___________________________________________
 
Chris Recoskie
Software Designer
IDE Frameworks Group
Texas Instruments, Toronto
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: cdt-patch-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cdt-patch-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Recoskie, Chris
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 4:56 PM
To: cdt-patch@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cdt-patch] fix for Bug#: 63973
 
The attached patch fixes 63973 (browseType
is ignored for string options).  With this patch applied, if you have
specified the browseType of a string option to be either “file” or “directory”,
you will get a browse button to the right of the edit field which will
invoke the appropriate type of browse dialog.
 
Currently browseType is ignored for everything
but list options and the various derivatives thereof.
 
___________________________________________
 
Chris Recoskie
Software Designer
IDE Frameworks Group
Texas Instruments, Toronto