Eclipse Mylyn Connector and Java API - first release

Submitted by rockfire on 2010-03-24

Hi WebIssues team and others.

First off, thanks for the great issue tracker. It works well for our small team, and was very simple to get set up. Keep up the good work!

Second, we wish to announce the first release of a Mylyn (http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/) connector that works with the WebIssues server.

For those that haven't heard of it, Mylyn is the Task framework that is part of the the Eclipse IDE and maintained by Tasktop (http://tasktop.com/). It can connect to many popular Issue Trackers such as Trac, Jira, Bugzilla and many others.

The Eclipse feature consists of two parts :-

1) An API library that talks the WebIssues protocol. This is completely re-usable and will be made available separately soon with documentation.

2) The Eclipse/Mylyn implementation classes that adapts the Mylyn task model to the API library and provides task and query editing GUI components.

So, what can it do?

* Create and edit new issues. Supports all attribute types
* Create and edit queries (similar to Filters).
* Offline mode (tasks and changes are stored locally until its possible to synchronize with server)
* Task context (all edits are tracked and associated with the current active issue)

What can't it do (yet)?

* Maintain users, projects, folders, types or attributes
* Filter based on type

We will be putting up some more information on our site and will post the link here when it's ready, but for now I'll leave you with the Eclipse Update Site URL. This was built against the latest stable Eclipse 3.5.2. Your mileage may vary with other versions.

http://svn.codespot.com/a/eclipselabs.org/mylyn-webissues/trunk/update-site - Stable (for 0.9.x server)
https://svn.codespot.com/a/eclipselabs.org/mylyn-webissues/branches/server-1.0/net.sf.webissues.updatesite/ - Unstable (for 1.0-alpha4 server and below)

Add this URL in the "Available Sites" preference page and install the "WebIssues Mylyn Connector" feature.

Thanks,

Pramatr Team

Hello,

That's great news! One of the main goals of WebIssues is to have as many client application as possible (desktop, web, mobile, plug-ins for other applications). I'm very glad that you made the API library and I think that integration with Eclipse will greatly help popularize WebIssues.

I'm going to take a look at the connector as soon as possible. When you post the final link, I will make an announcement on the main page and I'll add the link to the downloads page.

At the moment we're working on WebIssues 1.0 which will use a new version of the protocol, with many new features such as server-side filters, deleting/moving issues, etc. I think it would be a good idea if your team could also participate in designing WebIssues 1.0; also the new version of the API and connector could be developed in parallel with WebIssues. Please contact me via email if you're interested in such cooperation.

Regards,
Michał

Thanks for the positive reaction! We have finally gotten around to getting together a proper release of the library and the Mylyn connector, together with blog post detailing how to get started with it.

You can find the post here, and the both the library source and binary downloads (as well as the Eclipse update site) can be found on our downloads page.

An announcement has been made on the Mylyn lists as well, so hopefully that will steer a few downloads your way :)

The upcoming features sound interesting. For a start, I know server side filters will improve the Mylyn connector. So, regarding participating in developing WebIssues, we will be in touch. :)

Pramatr Team

Hi,
anyone knows what has happened to Pramatr? The site is offline for maintenance for quite some time now.

Hopefully they still work on the eclipse plugin. I really love using WebIssues directly inside eclipse.

psionic

Hi,

Unfortunately, the Pramatr project is no longer active. However, I wrote and own the code for the Webissues connector and have now moved the source to Eclipse Labs at http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/mylyn-webissues/

At the very least, there will be soon be an update to fix a couple of bugs (e.g. the problem the with downloading attachments).

Time allowing, development of the Java API library and Eclipse plugin will continue bringing it to feature parity with the official client.

If anyone wishes to help me achieve this, or has suggestions as to how best improve the plugin, you can do so via the Eclipse Labs project site.

The current version of the plugin still works (at least up to version 3.6) and is still available from the orginal update site, http://pramatr.com/eclipse/webissues/unstable (although this will move upon the first release from Eclipse Labs).

Thanks,

Brett

Michal,

The new update site is now live, and 0.9.3 is available for download. Change your eclipse update site to :-

http://svn.codespot.com/a/eclipselabs.org/mylyn-webissues/trunk/update-site

This release fixes the bug that prevents attachments being downloaded, and also allows Mylyn "Completed" status is configured (defaults to "Closed"). There may be other minor changes, but it has been a while since I worked on the source and have effectively lost the revision history.

I have also applied to be added to the Eclipse Market Place. The approval process is manual, so it should be available at some point in the next 24 hours.

Using the Eclipse Market Place makes it even easier get started, and places the WebIssues connector alongside others for popular tracking systems such as Trac, Bugzilla, JIRA and lots more. If you like the WebIssues connector, please consider voting for it at the market place ;)

Regarding 1.0 protocol support, I would like to prepare myself as much as possible. Is there any documentation available yet on how it works or should I start digging through the source?

Thanks,

Brett

Thanks, I updated the link on the Downloads page.

At the moment there is no documentation, before I create one you can look into the sources (especially common/data/protocol.ini and server/actions.inc.php on the server side).

Regards,
Michał

Thanks for the info. This was enough for me to get the connector working with the 1.0 protocol :)

I have created a new "unstable" update site for testing this, which you can find at https://svn.codespot.com/a/eclipselabs.org/mylyn-webissues/branches/server-1.0/net.sf.webissues.updatesite/.

The new library supports both the 0.9 and the 1.0 protocol (it auto-detects which to use), and all previously supported features seem to work.

I look forward to the next version of the server!

Regards,

Brett