This is mostly unorganized thought...
There are four primary features that I feel I currently benefit from
eclipse in everyday use
1) syntax highlighting
2) code assist
3) search
4) Referencing (outline and "open declaration"
#1 and #2 I see as likely simple to implement in regards to a web app
#3 is a bit hairy as my skills in this topic in general is limited
perhaps others have more experience, knowledge in it
#4 is absent when dealing with XML files in eclipse, especially with
OFBiz's component:// path syntax, but is second nature when OFBiz is
processing the call to the reference. This is the primary reason why
we _might want to explore the idea.
If the previously mentioned plugin is still in its planning stages and
no real investment of resources has gone into it, a web based solution
may be worth looking into as there are, I would suspect, a smaller
number of people who understand the OFBiz needs and the plugin
environment compared to the people who understand the OFBiz needs and
the OFBiz environment.
With more and more good examples of menu, tree, form widges and
simple-methods that we've gained over the last year, you can get pretty
far in OFBiz without ever having to touch java. If you don't have to
touch java, you can develop fully in runtime (provided you can reload
components and services). If you can develop fully in runtime, you can
quickly create scripts and such to build web apps in a Ruby on
Railsesque sort of way with a GUI (so yeah, you'd have a framework on a
framework ;-) ).
As for why I personally would prefer a web-based tool over a desktop
application for OFBiz development ease.
1) Neither exists.
2) I would like to use such a tool (in either environment).
3) While I understand Java, I am very slow in writing it, however much
faster in OFBiz tools
4) Because we must be the change that we want to see in the world I
would like to contribute an effort to bring about this tool.
5) Because of #3, I can contribute quite a bit to the development of
such a tool in a webapp environment, but very little in a plugin
environment.
I don't want to get too far down the thought process. Just testing the
waters for interest/do-ability for now.
Thanks!
Chris
--- "David E. Jones" <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I guess I'm missing something here: why would we want to use a web-
> based tool that is part of OFBiz instead of a desktop application,
> namely a plugin to a development environment?
>
> -David
>
>
> On Mar 21, 2007, at 9:09 PM, Chris Howe wrote:
>
> > There was some talk a while back about creating an Eclipse plugin
> for
> > OFBiz. How is that effort coming along? I ask because it is
> becoming
> > easier and easier to use rich AJAX tools inside OFBiz that it may
> be
> > within reach and reason to talk about creating a web application to
> > develop OFBiz applications.
> >
> > The benefit of an eclipse tool would be the ability to jump from
> say a
> > screen to a referenced location. That seems like a rather straight
> > forward task from a web application. Freemarker makes it rather
> > simple
> > to arrange an xml source so that you could focus on particular
> aspects
> > of development. The only thing that I'm seeing that might make it
> > difficult is the ability to load/unload services and components on
> the
> > fly.
> >
> > What does the community think? Does the content manager tackle
> > some of
> > this? Would a ofbiz.home/development be appropriate? Is this a
> much
> > larger task than it appears? Is there any interest?
>
>
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