Radek’s Tech Blog

Recently I was playing around consuming web service inside Eclipse plug-in. Making simple web service call maybe a bit tricky at the beginning. I’m going to provide quick start instruction here,

Required software:

• Eclipse for RCP/Plug-in Developer
• JEE Standard Tools & Axis
  

Configuration steps:

• Define new JEE service in a workspace
  
• Create new plug-in project
  
• Add following dependencies to the plug-in:
  • org.apache.commons.logging
  • javax.wsdl
  • javax.xml.rpc
  • javax.xml.soap
  • org.apache.commons.discovery
  • org.apache.axis

  

• Generate web service client code
  

  

Consume web service:

Using web service in side a plug-in is no different than anyone else. Sample of invoking web service method:

TransportServiceSoap service = new TransportServiceLocator().getTransportServiceSoap();
service.getCities();

Instruction presented above is based on Eclipse 3.4.1 and uses sample web service from http://www.urbanlife.pl/

Pluginbuilder is Eclipse tool that generates build configuration based on PDE build. By default the tool generates map file containing the information how source code of the plug-ins should be obtained. Supported methods are: CVS, GET and COPY. Assuming that you want to build your features or product from source files that are checked-out from repository independently from the build process COPY options seems to look reasonable. There are few problems with that:

• it requires absolute paths to plug-ins/features locations
• every single plug-in has to be listed there

Workaround for this is not using map file at all and provide appropriate build directory structure outside. To skip fetching resources based on map file configuration one need to set skipMaps property in build.properties file. Next step is to configure getting plug-ins/features resources into build directory. Recommended phase for copying the source code is preSetup phase in PDE build. To hook into this phase standard ant task for copying the files/directories in to build directory have to be invoked in preSetup target in customTargets.xml (it is generated by Pluginbuilder as well as other configuratoin files in build-files directory).

Those two modifications allow to make use of Pluginbuilder generated scripts to build Eclipse based applications without coupling it tightly to version control system.

I have finally upgraded my WordPress installation to version 2.7 … from version 2.3.2 – shame on me.

Upgrade went smoothly, my first impression: automatic upgrade of the plug-ins is really great!

Some time ago Jakub suggested that I write 7 things most people may not know about me.

1. I read political books. Waldemar Łysiak is one of my favorite authors.
2. I watch many TV series, probably too many while I mix the plots some times.
3. I hate ‘nothing-to-do’ state. It’s probably because I was pretty busy in last 2 years of my master studies (sharing time between full-time studying at AGH University and part-time working at Sabre Holdings). I just got used to the very busy schedules.
4. I’m a big fan of beer. Wherever I go I try to get a beer from local breweries (the smaller the better). I try to avoid drinking global brands. It’s not that fun to drink the same (or almost the same) beer everywhere around the globe.
5. In was doing pretty well in high school. I received a scholarship from Polish Prime Minister and I was the best graduate-student (2003).
6. I haven’t been playing video games since I was 15. They are too complicated for me nowadays ;-(
7. I was doing some .NET development in university times. Together with a team we were participating in Microsoft Imagine Cup (national finals in Software Design category 2006 and 2007). Unfortunately since I graduated I don’t do it any more. It’s hard to follow Java and .NET worlds simultaneously ;-(

Traditionally I encourage a few folks to share their lists as well:

• Bartek Wasielak
• Piotr Włodek
• Erol Arkan

My colleague Lukasz Milewski has just spotted a missing piece in a code sample for creating icons presented in previous post. In the screenshot you can see nice icons for currently running Jobs as well as for scheduled Jobs. You need to set two properties in your Job implementation to associate an icon with it.

	setProperty(IProgressConstants.KEEP_PROPERTY, Boolean.TRUE);
	setProperty(IProgressConstants.ICON_PROPERTY, ImageDescriptorFactory
		.createImageDescriptor(ICON_NAME));