Re: [FR-devel] Plugin dependencies proposal

[Laurent Julliard]

Rich Kilmer wrote:
> Team,

> My question is this:  Is "depends on" (from UNLOADED->LOAD and
> LOADED->START and their reverse) sufficient?
>
> Let me know your thoughts.
>
> Rich

I think we need no more than that right now. I would even argue that 
right now the only thing that is really useful is to know that a given 
 is running (Started).

Curt asked how Eclipse is handling this. Well the answer is: it is as 
basic as one can think. The plugin.xml file allows one to specify a 
<require> statement which actually means that you want the required 
plugins to be started before you actually start yours. There isn't any 
notion of 'loaded' state. Just 'Running' (= Started)

For your information the Eclipse documentation dealing with this is at

http://www.eclipse.org/documentation/html/plugins/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/doc/reference/misc/rplugman.html

The relevant section is pasted below:

The <requires> section of the manifest declares any dependencies on 
other plug-ins.

<!ELEMENT requires (import+)>
<!ELEMENT import EMPTY>
<!ATTLIST import
 plugin               CDATA #REQUIRED
 version              CDATA #IMPLIED
 match                (exact | compatible) "compatible"
 export               (true | false) "false"
>

Each dependency is specified using an <import> element. It contains 
the following attributes:

    * plugin - identifier of the required plug-in
    * version - optional version specification
    * match - version matching rule. Ignored if version attribute is 
not specified. Determines whether the dependency is satisfied only 
with a plug-in of the specified version (possibly with additional 
service applied), or the dependency can be satisfied with any 
compatible version (including a more recent minor version of the plug-in)
    * export - specifies whether the dependent plug-in classes are 
made visible (are (re)exported) to users of this plug-in. By default, 
dependent classes are not exported (are not made visible)