[udig-devel] Release process improved

[Jody Garnett <jgarnett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Found the following article:
http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/pde-build-home/articles/export%20rcp%20apps/article.html

Changes to our release feature (udigCore - please change the name):
build.properties
- no longer has a bin.includes
- root = .  was added (the article said to use absolute paths as a hack, 
but this relative one seems to work)
- config.files was added to get the configuration directory

What this means is we can go back to making a zip file in one step.

The article is worth a read it implies:
- we can include a JRE (if we get the legal rights to do so)
- something called org.eclipse.rcpHelper and an xml file will suck up 
the list of plug-ins we require; it acts as a normal feature that 
udigCore can list as an "included Feature" This is similar to a process 
David Zwiers suggested (currently all required plug-ins must be included 
in the workspace for release, rather than be smoothly depended on).
- update manager can reduce our initial download size (at the cost of 
"discovering" the required plug-ins during the first start - sounds like 
a bad trade for the RCP requirements but great for lazy download of udig 
capabilities.

It also looks like a lot of this is becoming automated - last time I 
created a Fetaure it had a "RCP" checkbox; and 
http://www.eclipsepowered.org/archives/2004/10/01/configini-templates-in-31m3/ 
shows config.ini template support is on its way.

Jody