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Bug 32347 - Need displayname and description for properties
Summary: Need displayname and description for properties
Status: CLOSED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: java
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Unsupported (show other bugs)
Version: 3.x
Hardware: PC All
: P3 blocker (vote)
Assignee: Jan Pokorsky
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2003-03-26 11:19 UTC by Vitezslav Stejskal
Modified: 2007-09-26 09:14 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Issue Type: TASK
Exception Reporter:


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Description Vitezslav Stejskal 2003-03-26 11:19:15 UTC
In order to implement properties on nodes we need
to know exactly what is the display name and what
is the short description (tooltip). Display names
are usually clear from the uispec, but the
description is missing.
Comment 1 Chris Ledantec 2003-04-01 09:56:58 UTC
i've added descriptions to the java spec. they follow the property
name so you have

<prop name> - <description>

sometimes there is additional information after the description that
is for use in the spec only. the updated spec will be pushed to
projects.nb.org later today or tomorrow.
Comment 2 Vitezslav Stejskal 2003-04-01 11:38:36 UTC
OK, re-assigning to developement. Also I think we should try to
implement descriptions for usability study.
Comment 3 Jan Pokorsky 2003-04-08 14:47:07 UTC
Chris, could you review the section Properties - Packages node in Java
UI Spec? You specify a property with a weird description there:

List of Java Roots -read only.
Comment 4 Jan Pokorsky 2003-04-08 17:53:26 UTC
Updated already implemented properties. Remaining should be
implemented according to the java ui spec.
Comment 5 Chris Ledantec 2003-04-08 18:14:43 UTC
the packages node should have a property for each Java root present.
it would look something like:

Property:               Name:
Java Root        | c:\path\to\root
Java Root        | c:\path\to\second\root
Java Root        | c:\path\to\third\root

description: Java Root directory for the project.
Comment 6 Jan Pokorsky 2003-04-08 19:18:56 UTC
The Packages Node' property was already implemented as a read-only
list of roots separated with comma some time ago. Are you going to
change the spec again? If so, you should update the document and file
a new task.
Comment 7 Svata Dedic 2003-04-08 20:34:29 UTC
It would be interesting to see several properties with the same name.
Not that it could not be done but it is... awkward.
Also please note that the "Edit..." operation in Packages node
Customizer is essentially a shortcut for remove/add sequence; there's
no point in re-defining the pointed to object; as it completely
changes the root's contents, having a true "edit" operation would only
complicate handling without any user benefit.

Comment 8 Jan Pokorsky 2003-04-08 21:23:17 UTC
Agreed. The properties with the same name look really strange. I have
never encountered such a mapping to properties in the IDE yet.
Personally I would prefer a possibility to switch between
logical/physical (packages/folders) views on the Packages node. The
switch could be an item of node's menu or its property.

To Edit... button. It is currently implemented as a remove+add shortcut.
Comment 9 Pavel Buzek 2003-04-08 21:47:26 UTC
I agree with Svata that this would be *ugly*. Sorry, but it seems like a hopeless effort to cover up the 
real problem which is:

The Packages node visualizes sources from one or more source directories. While there are reasons why 
this makes sense (a coherent view of the contents of source classpath) there are also some problems that 
this brings (it is not obvious what sources are under which root folder). 

I think that this problem can and should be solved. If there is only one physical location of sources the 
current design works just fine and there is also just one value of the property ;-)
I think that the case in which the java sources appear in multiple locations does not appear in simple 
applications. If the user deliberately decides to put sources in multiple locations then there is a 
good reason for that. Often times this would also mean the the sources are compiled by different 
compilation units (although they do not need to be). IMO this justifies that we show the files in each 
physical location in a separate tree.

<btw>
Do you have list of examples (use cases, user scenarion, ..) which lead to defining multiple locations 
for sources?
</btw>

The user may still decide to prefer the coherent view of classpath contents merged together and ignore 
the physical locations (and then the comma-separated list of locations + showing them in customizer is 
enough). The choice can be presented in customizer, just like there is a choice of project view in 
project node customizer.
Comment 10 Pavel Buzek 2003-04-08 21:49:32 UTC
I experienced a mid-air collision of my comment with Jan's :-) 
I could have just said +1 and that would have saved some words :-)
Comment 11 Svata Dedic 2003-04-09 07:43:02 UTC
Re.: use cases 

Apart from NetBeans (some modules have libsrc and src dirs, which are
compiled at once), I don't have many. I would recommend to use such
technique for localication subteam (with locale bundles separated to
the other subtree -- it would be nice to see a merge in packages, though. 
And I saw some other projects where relatively independent
subcomponents were developed in their own subtrees (the same situation
as in NetBeans, probably), but they were still compiled together. 
The last situation can be extended to cover various  versioning
requirements of the team (two or more VCSs ?), whether part of the
files do not come from other source (-> changes separated to another
phys location), ...

Agree that it is far more probable to have 1 jsource root per cc.
build target with several such build targets in the project than
multiple jsource roots.

However the merge was originally introduced to assist the user
abstracting from physical locations for sets of jsource roots that are
processed together (those compiled by the same b.t). For jsource roots
that use different processing, the merge does more harm than it
increases productivity, IMO.
Comment 12 Chris Ledantec 2003-04-09 08:19:30 UTC
ok. leave it as it is. 
Comment 13 Jan Becicka 2003-11-25 14:00:14 UTC
As described in
http://www.netbeans.org/servlets/ReadMsg?msgId=619519&listName=nbdiscuss the
current work on projects prototype has been stopped.

Marking issue as VERIFIED --->
Comment 14 Jan Becicka 2003-11-25 14:09:02 UTC
---> CLOSED