Wink 1.0-incubating Release

So finally Wink 1.0 is released. This release contains quite a lot of fixes (including many performance fixes) and also some features.
For the complete list of issues, see the release notes.

Wink 0.1-incubating Release

After almost 4 weeks of delay, I'm happy to announce that Apache Wink 0.1-incubating was released.
Don't let the version name to mislead you, it's actually the second major version of the REST framework that is developed internally by HP team for the last two years.
After this framework was chosen to become an initial code base for the Apache Wink project, the version became "0.1-incubating", but actually it ought to be "2.0". So it's mature enough to be used by any production application.

This release contains the client and server sides with some extensions:
Client: Apache Http Client
Server: Spring, WebDAV

The Server side is JAX-RS (JSR-311) 1.0 compliant and passed the relevant TCK tests.

Download Apache Wink

Feel free to ask any questions at Apache Wink User mailing list. Or at the comments to this post.

Enjoy!

My Projects at Ohloh

Somebody added the Encoder Tool and tarlog-plugins to Ohloh. It wasn't me, but I've registered and became manager and the only developer for these projects.
I've also put "I use it" buttons on the project sites, so if you are using these projects, you are welcome to click the buttons. It will give me a better indication how many users these projects have.

Apache Wink on Google App Engine

Today I tried to run the Apache Wink on the Google App Engine. It worked quite seamlessly. I only needed to add a slf4j-jdk14 bridge for logging and it just worked.
The only disappointment is about the lack of support of JAXB by the Google App Engine.
JAXB is used quite widely by the Apache Wink and is required by the JAX-RS (JSR-311) spec. We have based some of important functionality on JAXB: for example Atom and Json support is based on JAXB. So these providers won't work. But everything else I tried till now, works quite fine.

Apache Wink Site

I'm glad to announce that Apache Wink has finally an official site.

It would be great if you share this information, so the search engines would be able to increase the site's rating.

Here are some links to Apache Wink's site: Apache Wink JAXRS implementation JAX-RS implementation JAX RS implementation JSR-311 implementation JSR 311 implementation JSR311 JSR 311 JSR-311 JAX-RS JAXRS JAX RS

Encoder 0.5.1

I'd like to announce the release of Encoder 0.5.1 with the fix of Issue 24 (thanks to Anton for pointing this out)

In addition I've finally moved the build of Encoder's distribution to maven, so 0.5.1 contains both the Eclipse plugin and the standalone version.

Enjoy :)

Eclipse: Adding Custom Code Templates Programmatically

Here comes the small tip how to add/remove the code templates programmatically.

Warning! This tip includes using the Eclipse internal API. It works fine in 3.5, but may not work in other versions!

First get access to the TemplateStore:

import org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui.JavaPlugin;
import org.eclipse.jface.text.templates.persistence.TemplateStore;
...
public TemplateStore getCodeTemplateStore() {
    return JavaPlugin.getDefault().getTemplateStore();
}

Delete template:

TemplateStore codeTemplateStore = getCodeTemplateStore();
TemplatePersistenceData templateData = codeTemplateStore.getTemplateData("template.id");
if (templateData != null) {
    codeTemplateStore.delete(templateData );
}

Add new template:

String template = // template text
codeTemplateStore.add(new TemplatePersistenceData(new Template("template name", "Description", "java-members", template, true),true, "template.id"));

Save store:

codeTemplateStore.save();

tarlog-plugins 1.3.1

tarlog-plugins were enhanced with the support of Slf4j.

The switch between commons-logging and slf4j occurs using Preferences -> Tarlog Plugins -> Logger.
The same template "logger" is reused for both frameworks.

I needed this feature, since it was decided to use Slf4j for Wink. Hope more people will find it useful.

Wink is in the Air

So Wink is in the air! Well, almost...
Till now it was accepted as Apache Incubator project and HP's implementation was selected as the code base, which were the great news for our team :)
During the previous week a lot of small bugs were found and fixed to make the code JAX-RS (JSR 311) compliant and even more, so basically I think that Wink is ready for 0.1 release. Hopefully we'll succeed to release it till the end of July.

Eclipse Galileo - The first impression

During the last 5 years it became sort of tradition: I'm waiting till the end of June to download the latest release of Eclipse. The cynics usually say: "Wait for the first SP, the release is always full of bugs!" But I'm never patient enough to wait.

Usually I'm downloading the JEE bundle (the one that previously was called "wtp-all-in-one") and this is exactly what I did this time. The budnle's size for Galileo became larger: 189MB.
The Europa was 126MB and Ganymede was 163MB. Actually wtp-all-in-one 2.0.1 was 259MB, so 189MB is not that large.

Before launching Eclipse, I always take a look to eclipse.ini.
The good news: It now contains predefined memory settings, so it doesn't use the JVM defaults. And you don't need to remember how to set -Xms and -Xmx ("after -vmargs that must be the last arguments in the command line..." and so on).
Somehow it contains the double definition of launcher.XXMaxPermSize (a bug?)
In addition, I prefer setting also PermSize to 256MB and setting both -Xms and -Xmx to the same size: 512MB.
For the first run I decided to leave these settings as is.

So let's see it running... Wow, it started quite fast. If Eclipse became faster, it's really the good news. It always was somewhat slow.

The "Welcome" page. Also different. OK, links to JEE sub-projects... Here it is, the "What's New" section. Click. Click. Click. Hey! What's going on? Nothing happens! Samples? Tutorials? Workbench? Oh, finally it worked. Here comes the Workbench. And where is "What's New"?
Listen, folks, it's very disappointing that you put broken links on the "Welcome" page.

Anyway I think I can find "What's New" section myself: Help -> Help Contents. Wow! This was quick! Workbench User Guide -> What's New in 3.5. Great!

Don't be frightened. I'm not going copy here the whole "What's New" section. I'll only mention the bullets I have really liked:
1. Switching between open editors and multiple editor pages has been streamlined. Ctrl+PageDown and Ctrl+PageUp now always activate the next or previous editor tab, even in multi-page editors. To switch between pages of a multi-page editor, use Alt+PageDown and Alt+PageUp. - Cool! I really hated the previous situation, when multi-page editor makes you stuck, when you're using Ctrl+PageUp to switch between the open editors.
2. The whole "Install New Software" section has been completely changed again. I say "again", since it was completely changed just one year ago. From the first look, it's better now. I've installed CollabNet Desctop pretty smoothly.
3. Textual editors now support block (aka column or rectangular) selection mode. Quite a cool feature.
4. An Open Implementation hyperlink has been added for overridable methods, which directly opens the implementation in case there's only one, or shows all the concrete implementations for that method in the hierarchy of its declaring type, using the quick type hierarchy. By default, the hyperlink appears when you hold down the Ctrl key while hovering over an overridable method.
5. And here comes the coolest feature till now: The new toString() generator allows you to quickly generate a toString() method for your class. I was really missing this feature!
6. As usual there are compiler enhancements with new warnings. Nothing really special, but it's nice to have them. I'm still waiting for the warning about calling non-private methods from the constructors.
7. And the last enhancement, I would like to mention, is using Plug-in Spy in menus. Previously, it was possible to open a Plug-in Spy from Views and Editors only. Now its abilities were extended to menus: click Alt+Shift+f2 and select the menu.

So these were my favorite features from the "What's New" sections. In addition, I paid attention to some unmentioned (but still cool) content assist features. For example, when creating an anonymous class from the interface, the methods are generated automatically.
I believe there are many more features I didn't pay attention yet.

Let's sum up: The first impression from the Eclipse Galileo is very positive. The bugs I paid attention till now are minor and there are a lot of cool features.
In addition, I have a feeling that Eclipse Galileo is faster then the previous release. I hope it isn't just a feeling and that it IS faster.
I'll continue using Galileo and promise to report anything that is worthy mentioning in this blog. So follow up :)