Re: [TFUI] TDD of (ultimately) GUI app built atop a framework via plug-ins?

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:49:26 -0800 (PST), Al Chou <hotfusionman-/[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I want to build an application that should have a GUI.  I want to build it atop
> a framework like Eclipse or FreeRIDE that will allow me to essentially provide
> the custom functionality I need by creating plug-ins for the framework.  The
> app isn't an IDE or text editor, so I think I'm going to be stripping down the
> framework to its core that supports plug-ins (e.g., start with Eclipse Platform
> rather than Eclipse SDK) and building up from there.
> 

Seems like what you want is to develop a Rich Client Platform
application. If you use the latest milestone build (3.1M5) then you
get the basic wizards that create the starting points for you. The
lastest tutorials at EclipseCon 2005 has the latest startup pointers
that are relevant to 3.1. Also the RCP homepage tutorials are a great
starting place.

You can get all those links at my blog at

http://fitsterandeclipse.blogspot.com/

> I want to do TDD for this project, and I think the app should be usable via the
> command line or some similar scripting interface in addition to its GUI.

Here it depends what kind of TDD you want to do. If you are planning
on the black box type (aka junit) then you are in luck since the PDE
comes with a juinit plugin. To use it, read chapter 12 of Contributing
to Eclipse and onwards. Also Chapter 2 of Building Commercial-Quality
Plugins.

On the other hand if you want to do functional testing then you are
kind of in and out of luck.  There is basically only one tool for now,
Abbot at http://abbot.sourceforge.net/ BUT there are certain caveats
in using it: 1) You have to limit your development testing to windows
version since it doesn't quite work with GTK yet and 2) in order to
use it you have to use a hacked version of the SWT distribution. But
apart from that it is usable. Browse the email list for abbot since
there is a very good recent email explaining the whole mess.

If this is your first time approaching Eclipse GUI development then I
strongly suggest you build it as a standalone SWT/JFace application.
This will familiarize you with the basic widget architecture which is
very different from Swing (read true MVC). Once you have your spkie
going then it is a matter of refactoring the app into a plugin but you
gain the opportunity that maybe this is all you need and also you can
concentrate on just the learning factor of the plugin development
cycle per.

> 
> Anyone out there have any experience or advice on how to approach such a
> project?

Good Luck.

> 
> Al
> 
> =====
> Albert Davidson Chou
> 
>     Get answers to Mac questions at http://www.Mac-Mgrs.org/ .
> 
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