Date Posted: October 11, 2007
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1. Why does this plug-in not work on Internet Explorer?
The content provided by the server is in the XUL (XML User interface Language) format, which is understood and rendered only by Mozilla browsers, such as Firefox. It is possible to render the content in any other format (for example, HTML), the only change required being the building of the appropriate XSL Stylesheet. We have not introduced that support at this time.
2. I get an error message saying "Please download the Jetty JARs." What must be done?
The plug-in uses Jetty as an embedded Web server for serving the content to the browser. You must download the Jetty JAR (Java™ Archive Resource) 5.1 files separately and place them in the eclipseWebEnabler_0.0.1/jars folder.
3. What do we achieve by Web-enabling Eclipse?
Any remote user could use a centralized Eclipse instance, which could be a huge collection of already configured plug-ins for the Eclipse platform. The user would merely need a URL to connect to this Eclipse and use the desired plug-ins without having to download anything. Also the user could have his workspace in the central repository, which can be accessed from anywhere in the network. The user-specific workspace is a goal of this project and is not contained in this current release.
4. What is the concept of multiple users?
By taking Eclipse to the server side, multiple browser-based users would be able to access a central repository of Eclipse with all the installed plug-ins. This could lead to dynamic sharing of plug-ins among the developer community.
5. What are the current limitations of this project?
Eclipse is a desktop application and is meant to function for a single user. It does not cater to a server-based application concept, primarily because multiple users cannot access the same Eclipse instance. Therefore, we need to make an instance of Eclipse behave as a server to serve multiple users. This is a goal of the project, and we are looking at options for making this happen.
Currently this technology supports the display of most Eclipse User Interface content, except for the ones created with Graphical Editing Framework (GEF) or visual editors, and the like. For example, a Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagram that you created with the Eclipse IDE will not be visible on the browser.