Upgrading the Plugin via Eclipse Install Site

[dtg3]

Thinking about future releases of the Eclipse Plugin, we will need to consider how to structure the URLs for the Eclipse Installer site(s) we post online.

I’m not sure how this is normally handled as unlike most plugins we actually have other tools that the plugins are reliant on that are provided externally to Eclipse. For example release 0.0.1 is not compatible with release 0.1.0 as they communicate differently with the core.

One option might be to provide update sites for specific releases. So a 0.1.0 installation site would encompass 0.1.0 and all bug fix point releases 0.1.1 and up. This ensures no breaking changes if they are using a version of the Core that is compatible.

One other option might be to provide the above sites as well as a “latest” site for people who always want the cutting edge and will upgrade all components.

Again, I’m not sure how this is done especially given our unique constraints. All suggestions are welcome.

[dtg3]

This issue may not be blocking the release, but should still be something we discuss.

[dtg3]

The IVY site hosts multiple versions which you can see from Eclipse by disabling the Show only the latest versions of available software on the Install New Software Window

They seem to have all the versions in one directory with some kind of cataloging XML files.
http://www.apache.org/dist/ant/ivyde/updatesite/

Googling the indexing files reveals some Eclipse documentation
https://help.eclipse.org/kepler/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Fguide%2Fp2_composite_repositories.htm

[dtg3]

Manual recreation of the xml files Ivy used didn't seem to work, but none of our packages were generated using a non 0.1.0 version number (I did attempt to fudge the data to be a 0.1.1 release number). It looks like this might be able to be done manually, but also from Ant http://www.lorenzobettini.it/2015/01/creating-p2-composite-repositories-during-the-build/

We might be able to do this later if we don't want to hold the release up any longer, but this it something we should probably do.