IAM/q4e 0.7.0 has been released

The Eclipse IAM/q4e team has released a new version.

I would talk about the new features, but there is an extremely nice New and Noteworthy page on the wiki which has saved me some work.

I would point out only a few features that I really like:

1. Autocompletion for dependencies in pom.xml. This is nicely done by installing the WTP XML editor if your eclipse doesn’t have it. Suggestions come from the new artifact search framework.
2. Using maven mojos in the workspace for your builds. This new feature will be really useful for maven plug-in developers… we want your feedback!
3. An upgraded embedder which allows the use of Maven 2.0.9 features (and plug-ins using those feaures).

Hope you enjoy using q4e as much as we enjoyed making this release!

SWT tip: Using SelectionAdapter

This one is probably for newbies.

When providing a SelectionListener for doing a something when a SWT button is pressed, you’ll need to implement two methods:

Button b = new Button(container, SWT.PUSH);
b.addSelectionListener( new SelectionListener()
{
  public void widgetSelected( SelectionEvent e )
  {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  }

  public void widgetDefaultSelected( SelectionEvent e )
  {
    // TODO Auto-generated method stub
  }
} );

However, only one of those methods will be called: widgetSelected

So you can save a couple of lines (which is always nice, specially when inlining the handlers like in these examples) by using SelectionAdapter, an implementation of SelectionListener with default implementation of both methods (which is to do nothing).

The final, shorter, core looks like this:

Button b = new Button(container, SWT.PUSH);
b.addSelectionListener( new SelectionAdapter()
{
  public void widgetSelected( SelectionEvent e )
  {
    doSomething();
  }
} );

Q4E Screencasts available on mirrors

I’ve received notice from Jing (owners of screencast.com where q4e screencasts are hosted) that the allowed bandwidth is about to be exceeded… Thanks for the interest!

As a reminder, you can watch the WTP Screencast from Joakim’s site.

Q for Eclipse closer to becoming an Eclipse Project

Q for Eclipse, or q4e for short, is an open-source and open-development eclipse plug-in for bridging the gap between Eclipse and Maven. It is available from its google code home.

Since we believe that every eclipse user should be able to enjoy the benefits of using maven, we’ve proposed IAM (Integration for Apache Maven) as a new Eclipse project. Of course we offered q4e as an initial code contribution for the project. The proposal is discussed on its eclipse newsgroup (you’ll need to get a password from eclipse).

We’ve been working towards becoming a good candidate for an Eclipse project. The number of committers and the overall project activity has been growing, we’ve provided WTP integration, allowed sophisticated dependency analiysis…  and much more.

Now, we’re gearing towards the final step for donating q4e source to the IAM proposal… getting IAM into the eclipse incubator.

For this, we needed two eclipse mentors.

Well, we’ve got three

• Ed Merks, IBM: Eclipse EMF
• Thomas Watson, IBM, Equinox
• Brett Porter, Exist Global: Maven PMC, Apache member,…

Being an official Eclipse project can only bring good things to q4e. Since we will have more eyes on the project, more enhancements will be requested and more hands will join in.

If you use q4e, feel free to write some quotes on the IAM group. We always like to know who’s using q4e and where!

Exciting times are ahead!

Eclipse 4 released

It has just been announced…

Are you ready for it?