RE: [eclipse-dev] Please help me stop the context menu abuse

["Philippe Ombredanne" <pombredanne@xxxxxxxx>]

Max wrote:
> It is about them adding "project enablement" menu items to 
> the context menu. This should be banned by law! :)
> I know it is late in the game, but I honestly believe it is 
> important we try and stop the "random adding" to the context menu.

This is indeed ugly and is rooted in a few reasons:
- PDE promotes that actively: the pde new project wizard builder sample
creates an "add nature" popup (Plug-in with an incremental Project
Builder.), therefore promoting that kind of pop-up. My first builder had it.
Every builder I created since had them :-P: you get hooked to it.
- This is good UI: right-clicking on a project to alter its support for
things is a natural user action, a popup is only very few clicks ,
contextual, and in contrast going to a top level menu is a bigger physical
effort: it requires a bigger eye and hand movement. Users will go for the
thing that makes sense for them. Pop-ups do make sense.
- This is needed: the first thing users have asked me each time I added
support for new language or framework in Eclipse was to be able to add
support for that puppy to pre-existing workspace projects (a Java project,
etc.)  and that includes Java: how many did we help newbies convert a
project to JDT by editing the .project ? countless! 

So to recap: 
Context: Users need it, it is easy and good UI, and pde promotes it...
Problem: ... yet the platform UI support is non-existent...
Solution (or lack thereof): ...therefore, everyone does it is an un-ruly way
and it looks ugly.

Note that there was a bug on the topic 100,000 bugs ago:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=102527  and there is already a
good discussion there, albeit inconclusive.

> I know it is late in the game, but I honestly believe it is 
> important we try and stop the "random adding" to the context menu.

For Ganymede, I think this is too late in the game to address at a platform
level, but that should be seriously considered for E4.
There is a dire need for some API and platform support, much in the same way
there was a need to a New/Import/Export Wizard APIs.

> So I actually did not have a better suggestion until today 
> where I realized that Eclipse has this nice "Project" menu 
> which fits perfectly for these kind of operations and we 
> actually already have "Convert to a dynamic web project..." in there.
> I suggest that we push for getting such "project enablement" 
> items moved to that menu instead and maybe even create a 
> "Enable >" sub menu under it.

In the short term, IMHO each project should be mindful of context menu
real-estate, eventually relocating their un-ruly contributions in the
project menu as you suggested. Yet that is just moving the problem
elsewhere... and is not the best UI: user will still loom for it in the
context menu first. 
Maybe  a quick group marker from platform ui could help there  ;-) or the
affected projects can agree together and without the platform on a common ID
even if it is not contributed by the platfom.

> In JBoss Tools we have done these things by instead putting 
> them under Properties but I realize that just moves the issue 
> to the proliferation of project properties.

In a product context, you can also apply your "hand of god" and massage
contributions as required. I have used Kim Horne's Equinox transforms with
great success there. http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_Transforms : a small
XSL  and voila... your popup menus can become project menu items. That can
only work for products though, as it works as an OSGi framework extension.
Another poor-man's approach is information hiding/progressive disclosure
with aggressive activities/capabilities definitions but that is imho harder
work.

> WDYT ? If this is the wrong list to push this then please let 
> me know where else to push to get this into Eclipse 3.4 and 
> not wait another year... ;)
++ 100% agreeing. This is either an eclipse-dev or cross-project issue. 
This is has been a serious growing pain for Eclipse.


/HTH

-- 
Cheers
Philippe

philippe ombredanne | 1 650 799 0949 | pombredanne at nexb.com 
nexB - Open by Design (tm) - http://www.nexb.com 
http://easyeclipse.org - http://phpeclipse.net - http://eclipse.org/atf - 
http://eclipse.org/vep - http://labs.jboss.org/drools/ -
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner


> -----Original Message-----
> From: eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx 
> [mailto:eclipse-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Max 
> Rydahl Andersen
> Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 11:56 PM
> To: wtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: General Dali EJB ORM developer discussion.; General 
> development mailing list of the Eclipse project.
> Subject: [eclipse-dev] Please help me stop the context menu abuse
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I just opened 
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=231257 and 
> https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=231258 against 
> WebTools and Dali.
> 
> It is about them adding "project enablement" menu items to 
> the context menu. This should be banned by law! :)
> 
> I know it is late in the game, but I honestly believe it is 
> important we try and stop the "random adding" to the context menu.
> 
> In JBoss Tools we have done these things by instead putting 
> them under Properties but I realize that just moves the issue 
> to the profileration of project properties.
> 
> So I actually did not have a better suggestion until today 
> where I realized that Eclipse has this nice "Project" menu 
> which fits perfectly for these kind of operations and we 
> actually already have "Convert to a dynamic web project..." in there.
> 
> I suggest that we push for getting such "project enablement" 
> items moved to that menu instead and maybe even create a 
> "Enable >" sub menu under it.
> 
> WDYT ? If this is the wrong list to push this then please let 
> me know where else to push to get this into Eclipse 3.4 and 
> not wait another year... ;)
> 
> /max
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