Weekly report

From: Stephen J. Garland <garland_at_csail.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:33:22 -0400

What I did last week:

  (1) Successfully built an Eclipse RCP version of minimal Haystack
using Eclipse 3.1.

  (2) As part of (1), modified the codebase for minimal Haystack so
that it compiled under Eclipse 3.1. Pervasive problems stemmed from the
expanded API in Eclipse 3.1, e.g., by the addition of the class
org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Resource, which caused ambiguities in Haystack
classes that imported org.eclipse.swt.graphics.* and
edu.mit.lcs.haystack.rdf.*. Fixed these problems by making "imports"
statements explicit. Also cleaned up code and comments to reduce the
number of entries concerning Haystack in the Eclipse Problems and Tasks
views.

  (3) Also as part of (1), streamlined the appearance of the UI in the
RCP version of Haystack (by eliminating extraneous Eclipse menus and
decorations).

  4) Helped Jinwen Ouyang improve the UI of Haystack's calendar plugin
(the monthly calendar now highlights dates on which there are appointments).


What I will do this week:

  (1) Polish and release the Eclipse RCP version of Haystack. Things
to do:

       (1a) Modify the rest of the Hayloft plugins to work under
Eclipse 3.1

       (1b) Finish productizing Haystack by incorporating a logo,
splash screen, etc.,

       (1c) Incorporate Linux and Mac builds into the build script for
the release.

       (1d) AddHaystack configuration facilities for flushing
Haystack's RDF store, downloading new/updated plugins, switching
dynamically between the full screen perspective, which has no associated
Eclipse menu or tool bar, and the tabbed perspective, which does.

       (1e) Time permitting, tidy up additional aspects of the Haystack
code base (e.g., by making the runtime log more readable/useful).

 (2) Update Haystack documentation (how to install, how to build plugins
and the RCP product, how to convert legacy Haystack code to work in the
new architecture).
Received on Mon Aug 22 2005 - 17:27:33 EDT