The way to develop astyleclipse

Abstract

By using a real example to describe how to develop a small eclipse plugin in eclipse spirit.

Background

CDT is a eclipse top project for C/C++ development, not like JDT, it doesn't have formatter tool as default, though it has the extension point there. And I am eager to have this "plugin" to beautify my legacy codes.

I had good experience on programming, but just start to use eclipse for development

Step 1, check whether there is existing eclipse plugin

As a spirit of eclipse - "don't reinvent the wheel", always check whether there are plugins exist already, it can also prevent the competition in the end, think about the "subversive vs subclipse"

Google the web, I found there are 2 plugins exist.

• Simple Indent which call external indent or astyle
• internal CDT plugin, there is a plugin for indent,

Ok, do it following the instruction, both of them need the indent/astyle installed first, which feels not good, and both of them doesn t work under solaris platform. Besides this, one temple file has to be used when invoking external program, it smells bad - need refactoring ;-). Furthermore, the performance is not excellent.

Step 2, Thinking of DIY and preparation.

As a open source fan, I think probably I shall DIY, then check what shall I do before start

• Competence - I have no experience of eclipse plugin , even not a java guru. Fortunately eclipse provides a lot of "HelloWorld" stuff, and also there are so many open guideline for it, which can let me copy/paste a lot of codes.
• Where to host it - before you want to publish the plugin, you need find a room for it. Fortunately I have experience of using sourceforge.net for a long time, so piece of cake for me.
• Code base - simple strategy is to based on internal CDT plugin and add astyle or indent codes to do it. Fortunately I googled astyle java portation, which is originally for jedit plugin.

Step 3, DIY

Download the CDT's indent plugin, try it and modify to understand how the plugin and extension works, great, I almost have my own plugin.
Take a look at astyle java version, it has main function which includes methods I can use, great, copy it into my plugin folder, and play a little bit, Ahhh, it works.
Then it is time to publish - Deliver early".find a nice name "astyleclipse", which means astyle engine and eclipse plugin. Register it in sf.net. 0.0.3 version. Without preference page, all the options are hard coded. One webpage is simple created by coping from others, look nice.

Before publish, it is better to make it easy to use, follow the example in eclipse PDE, add a preference page for selection different styles. It looks it is a qualified plugin now for normal user, let me see how is the feedback from community to see which I shall deliver in next release. Actually I already have a roadmap in my mind.

Step 4, Advertising

Where to advertise ?
Surely www.eclipseplugincentral.com is the first choice, register a user there and publish, then to see what happens. I didn't publish or advertise in other place even in forum, just want to track how the open source works, it is another way to learn the eclipse ecosystem.

Step 5, Agile way for frequent delivery

Luckly one user response quickly with bug/feature request, discuss with him and provide some features that he wanted.
User's feedback keep me deliver the new version, sometimes just wonder whether I am so frequent.

Step 6, Next step

This is a small plugin, I develop it mostly for fun. Clover could provide free license for opensource project for quality control, so I can try it for free, wonderful. Later I well request for FishEye

• Update manager is added, Subversion is used
• Astyle part will be migrated to latest version (planned in 1.1.0 release)
• Quality and junit will be added (not true TDD this time ;-)
• Longterm plan is already defined
• The best choice is to merge into CDT plugin as it like for JDT, before that, ), and profile shall be added as well, which need me more competence.

Summary

Besides the plugin itself, I am also a fan of agile methodology, so it is a chance for me to practise for a tiny project as well to see how the process of eclipse works

Give me comments if you happened to read this page, larry.caiyu(at)gmail.com

Changelog

2006-10-13, Draft is written in Esslingen am Neckar, Germany after Eclipse Summit Europe 2006
2006-10-21, published on own web