Category: Eclipse

I have pushed my first bug fix with EGit today (bug 319343, which occurred when canceling an XML Security Tools wizard). Developing the fix was easy, using EGit not (OK, some rookie trouble):

The commit to my local repo worked fine. But the push failed. I dropped over bug 317389. Every push failed with the error message ,Can‘t connect to any URI‘. Fortunately, the described work around (editing the Git config manually) worked, and I was able to finally push my changes to the XML Security branch.

The next surprise was provided by the index web site. The timestamp for my push was far too old. As it turns out, this timestamp is based on the commit time to your local repository. Seems a little bit strange to me, I would expect the commit and push timestamp to be different. I imagine developers are using this timestamp to check what is already contained in their local repository (via pull) and what is new. And an old timestamp could be misleading, letting someone think this change is already available locally…

Quite a few things are happening around the XML Security Tools at the moment. For one thing, Eric Fu (Canada) is supporting me with bug reports and (much more important) their fixes. He is not an official committer yet, but I very much welcome his support! And a new developer requires me to set up a project/ release plan, so stay tuned to this blog…

The other thing is Git or EGit. Since all Web Tools Platform incubator projects decided to switch to Git, CVS usage will be discontinued. The migration was successful, Hudson is already up and running again. At the moment I‘m dangling my feet in Git/EGit.

XML Security Tools now builds on Hudson! One nice side effect is the update site support, which makes installations much easier for you. Simply add the URL to your update sites and you can receive every update easily.

With special thanks to Dave Carver for the setup work.

I have released a new XML Security Tools build today. This release includes only some documentation updates which are available in the Eclipse wiki too (in the Documentation/ User Guide section).

A new XML Security Tools build is available. This new integration build on the official Web Tools download page contains a complete English online help for the whole plug-in as well as several UI enhancements and different bug fixes.

The German tutorials are completely up to date too.

A new XML Security Tools release is available for download. This release contains some minor UI enhancements in the XML Encryption Wizard which should make it easier to use. And I continued working on the documentation (a.k.a. online help) which now contains some parts of the XML Encryption Wizard too. As a reminder: all documentation is developed in the Eclipse wiki. Feel free to open a Bugzilla account and to help me.

I moved from Actions to Commands lately for all XML Security Tools operations. Except some removed icons, the XML Security context menu doesn't look much different. So why all the work (or trouble)? Well, Commands are much cooler: clean separation of UI and business logic, and therefore reusable. Yes, it's possible to reuse Actions too, simply duplicate the code…

The main reason for the change was to integrate closer with the rest of the Web Tools Platform. The XML Security extension is now available in the Package Explorer, Project Explorer and Navigator view, but only in the XML perspective. The editor extension (the same menu) is available in the WTP XML editor at all times (in any perspective). Achiving that is much easier with Commands (Menus and Handlers) than with Actions.

The layout changes should make it easier to use the XML Security Tools commands. The menu entries with icons use the regular wizards and require much user interaction. The menu entries without icons are the so called quick functions with minimum user interaction.

The next step is to provide a simplified menu in the XPath view: after entering an XPath expression simply select the desired resulting element and choose sign or encrypt. The XML Security wizard should already take into account which element is selected. This is not done yet, see BugZilla for my progress on that. And I'm working on the documentation, the English version in the Eclipse wiki, the German version as tutorials on my home page.

The latest XML Security Tools version is available on the WTP Incubator download page. The promoted version available here does not include the latest changes. The next integration build on this site will be available after the English documentation is completed. So visit the committers download page for continuous updates and the WTP download page for more or less stable integration builds.