Creating an Eclipse update site

[Yuzo Kanomata <yuzok@ics.uci.edu>]

Hi All,

Well, I succeeded in making a test update site. The process is a bit 
complicated, but this is what the documentation says is the way. There are 
some pitfalls which I will note.

Assumption 1. You have a Plug-in project where you made the plug-in. For 
this e-mail, I'll call it "edu.uci.ics.myplugin"

Step 1. Creating a Feature -- this is needed so that you can create the 
update site using Eclipse and it's wizards.

First you have to make new "Feature" Project -- this is done by first 
selecting File->New->Project ...
A wizard comes up. Open the "Plug-in Development" folder and select 
"Feature Project". click next.
Select a project unique project name like "project-feature" click next.
Now this pane is important. In the Feature Properties section there are 4 
fields. Put in the plug-in project in the Feature ID Field the name of the 
plug-in project! e.g., "edu.uci.ics.myplugin". Then give it a Feature Name 
e.g., Super Reveng Plug-in. Then a Feature version number. For Feature 
Provider put in UC Irvine or something.  click next.

Now select the plug-in out of the list. Your plug-in "edu.uci.ics.myplugin" 
should be there. Click Finish.

Now you have the feature.xml file open. Here need to fill out a number of 
panes. Overview has most of the information you put in all ready, but at 
the bottom you can specify OS and other platform specific items. An 
important Pane is the Information. Here is where the description, 
copyright, and license stuff gets put in.


Step 2. Making an Update site project -- There are broken things here!

Project is why you needed the feature step in the first place. The wizard 
only seems to want to put in features!

Okay. You create a Update Site Project almost as above. File->New->Project 
... the select Update Site under Plug-in Development.

After you go through the wizard, you will get to a pane for site.xml. This 
file is the key to how updates work. The information contained in it is how 
Eclipse updates itself.

To enter things in the Features to Build side, you must have a feature 
project in Eclipse. (thus step 1) So click Add and select you 
project-feature project. Now you have to right click in the pane do three 
things. First save, then build, then publish. on you selected feature.

What this does is *almost* makes the correct site.xml file. So far I have 
not gotten the output correct, so I have hand constructed some additional 
parts to the xml file. First thing you will probably want to do is make a 
Category using the right side of the site.xml pane. Click new Category and 
give it a name like "My Plug-in", label "something", and a description. 
Then save and publish. These two steps are needed to save it in the 
site.xml file.

Now for the massaging part -- you need to make add this element between the 
<feature> </feature> tag.

<category name="same as name in category-def name"/>

The Category-def name is in the site.xml file and is the name you made for 
the category just above.

This is necessary to allow Eclipse's software update wizard to work. The 
default way the update site Eclipse makes will not work!

Also a big gotcha in testing is that Eclipse cache's the site.xml file. So 
if you want to test you site.xml file you must restart Eclipse!

Yuzo