Web Flow XML Editor available

[Christian Dupuis]

Hello community,

the latest nightly build on our way towards Spring IDE 2.0 M3 contains XML editing support for Spring Web Flow flow definitions and Web Flow's 2.0 configuration namespace.

More details are available at http://springide.org/project/wiki/WebflowXmlEditor. The build can be installed from our nightly build updatesite (http://springide.org/updatesite_nightly/).

Please provide us with your thoughts and feedback on this, as we want to make the Web Flow support as valuable as possible. Comments in this thread are welcome.

Cheers
Christian

[alpheratz]

I'll jump in and say 'thanks'...lots of hard work must have gone into this.

*My* major issue at this point in time is not having a graphical visualisation tool. Managers LOVE pretty pictures and I'd like to be able to give them what they want...

Less facetiously, I have a flow with about 60 nodes now and keeping the complexity straight in my head is becoming an issue that a visualiser would REALLY help with. It would also be a very useful tool to have on hand when sitting down with clients...the people who are actually going to be driving my app through its flow, and also with the people who are designing the business processes that my flow is supposed to mimic.

Looking forward to M3!

Cheers,

Alph

[Paul Newport]

One thing I noticed that since installing the nightly build, I now have a menu item called %refactorMenu.label !

That could be because I did a Callisto update as well, but might be worth investigating.

I do agree with the other post that the most important thing is the visualization, I can cope with hand coding the XML, but the pretty picture is better than a thousand words/lines of XML !

Excellent plugin none the less !

[Christian Dupuis]

One thing I noticed that since installing the nightly build, I now have a menu item called %refactorMenu.label !

Hey, you came across a newly added feature: Refactoring of Java elements triggered form the Spring XML files; just use the normal Shift+Alt+R and Shift+Alt+V on class names, property names and bean ids. I've created a ticket for the missing menu label. http://springide.org/project/ticket/485

I do agree with the other post that the most important thing is the visualization, I can cope with hand coding the XML, but the pretty picture is better than a thousand words/lines of XML !

If you guys are keen on getting read-only visualization of flow definitions, you will be happy to hear that this will be part of coming M3 (due ~next week).

Christian

[Paul Newport]

If you guys are keen on getting read-only visualization of flow definitions, you will be happy to hear that this will be part of coming M3 (due ~next week).

Christian

I noticed the refactor thing on the context menu as well, but the missing label threw me a bit.

Great on the visualisation bit !

[garpinc2]

org.osgi.framework.BundleException: The activator org.springframework.ide.eclipse.beans.core.BeansCo rePlugin for bundle org.springframework.ide.eclipse.beans.core is invalid

[alpheratz]

Whopee! Visualisation!

I'm SOOO looking forward to M3.

Alph

[Keith Donald]

Here here to Web Flow visualization!!!!!

[Paul Newport]

Hey, you came across a newly added feature: Refactoring of Java elements triggered form the Spring XML files; just use the normal Shift+Alt+R and Shift+Alt+V on class names, property names and bean ids. I've created a ticket for the missing menu label. http://springide.org/project/ticket/485

If you guys are keen on getting read-only visualization of flow definitions, you will be happy to hear that this will be part of coming M3 (due ~next week).

Christian

I am demoing SWF to developers on Monday, it would be great if it was there before then - no pressure ;-)

[Paul Newport]

Odd one this one.

I have the plugin working fine on my laptop. I copy the entire eclipse installation directory to my work desktop, and get this when I try and show a graph view:

The only differences are JRE level the work is JRE 1.5.0_10 and laptop is _11, and the work PC is behind a firewall.

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.ide.eclipse.beans.ui.navigator.BeansExplorer
	at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleLoader.findClass(BundleLoader.java:402)
	at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleLoader.findClass(BundleLoader.java:347)
	at org.eclipse.osgi.internal.baseadaptor.DefaultClassLoader.loadClass(DefaultClassLoader.java:83)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:235)
	at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleLoader.loadClass(BundleLoader.java:278)
	at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.BundleHost.loadClass(BundleHost.java:227)
	at org.eclipse.osgi.framework.internal.core.AbstractBundle.loadClass(AbstractBundle.java:1245)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.registry.osgi.RegistryStrategyOSGI.createExecutableExtension(RegistryStrategyOSGI.java:147)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.registry.ExtensionRegistry.createExecutableExtension(ExtensionRegistry.java:759)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.registry.ConfigurationElement.createExecutableExtension(ConfigurationElement.java:243)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.registry.ConfigurationElementHandle.createExecutableExtension(ConfigurationElementHandle.java:51)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPlugin$1.run(WorkbenchPlugin.java:242)
	at org.eclipse.swt.custom.BusyIndicator.showWhile(BusyIndicator.java:67)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPlugin.createExtension(WorkbenchPlugin.java:238)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.registry.ViewDescriptor.createView(ViewDescriptor.java:69)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ViewReference.createPartHelper(ViewReference.java:292)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ViewReference.createPart(ViewReference.java:197)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPartReference.getPart(WorkbenchPartReference.java:566)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Perspective.showView(Perspective.java:1675)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage.busyShowView(WorkbenchPage.java:987)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage.access$13(WorkbenchPage.java:968)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage$13.run(WorkbenchPage.java:3514)
	at org.eclipse.swt.custom.BusyIndicator.showWhile(BusyIndicator.java:67)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage.showView(WorkbenchPage.java:3511)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.WorkbenchPage.showView(WorkbenchPage.java:3487)
	at org.eclipse.ui.handlers.ShowViewHandler.openView(ShowViewHandler.java:148)
	at org.eclipse.ui.handlers.ShowViewHandler.openOther(ShowViewHandler.java:104)
	at org.eclipse.ui.handlers.ShowViewHandler.execute(ShowViewHandler.java:70)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ShowViewMenu$3.run(ShowViewMenu.java:114)
	at org.eclipse.jface.action.Action.runWithEvent(Action.java:499)
	at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.handleWidgetSelection(ActionContributionItem.java:539)
	at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.access$2(ActionContributionItem.java:488)
	at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem$5.handleEvent(ActionContributionItem.java:400)
	at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:66)
	at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:928)
	at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runDeferredEvents(Display.java:3348)
	at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:2968)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runEventLoop(Workbench.java:1930)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runUI(Workbench.java:1894)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Workbench.java:422)
	at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(PlatformUI.java:149)
	at org.eclipse.ui.internal.ide.IDEApplication.run(IDEApplication.java:95)
	at org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.PlatformActivator$1.run(PlatformActivator.java:78)
	at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.runApplication(EclipseAppLauncher.java:92)
	at org.eclipse.core.runtime.internal.adaptor.EclipseAppLauncher.start(EclipseAppLauncher.java:68)
	at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:400)
	at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:177)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:324)
	at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:336)
	at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:280)
	at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:977)
	at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:952)