Add an editor for p2.inf

[laeubi]

Currently one can do powerful things when using a p2.inf but users have to edit it manually.

It would be good to have an editor in PDE to show it along with the manifest (like we already do for plugin.xml and others) together with some auto-completion and validation.

[nburnwal09]

I want to work on this.
p2.inf largely contains key value pairs, what additional features/functions it's editor should have other than a PropertiesFileEditor

[merks]

These are the details of what type of meaningful content one can author in such a resource:

https://eclipse.dev/eclipse/markdown/?file=eclipse-equinox/p2/master/docs/Customizing_Metadata.md

Note that features also support p2.inf...

[laeubi]

First it needs to be show with other editor tabs like build.properties and plugin.xml when you open the Manifest editor.

Then you should look at https://eclipse.dev/eclipse/markdown/?file=eclipse-equinox/p2/master/docs/Customizing_Metadata.md you will see that there are special prefixes to be used

• properties
• provides
• ..

then there are some special suffixes

• namespace
• version
• ..

and then these has special meanings.

So an editor would offer me auto-completion for the names and give errors when something is inconsistent.

[nburnwal09]

@laeubi
I am planning to create an editor similar to the look of build.properties, with key–value pairs separated by =, including a space before and after it.
I have noted the points above regarding special prefixes, suffixes, and auto-completion.
Would that be okay?

[laeubi]

sure give it a try. I think it would make sense to show it in the manifest editor as a tab like build.properties and as a standalone editor.

[merks]

Keep in mind that features, products, and I think a category.xml can have such associated things too.

[nburnwal09]

@laeubi
I was checking this and the PropertiesFile for p2.inf belongs to org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui repo. The way other editors(manifest, plugin.xml, etc) are added is very different because they all belong to pde repo itself.
Also, for any editor, the inputContext is set in InputContextManager which doesn't seems possible for creating an editor PropertiesFile at this moment. But I will try to look at it again.

eclipse.pde/ui/org.eclipse.pde.ui/src/org/eclipse/pde/internal/ui/editor/context/InputContextManager.java

Lines 130 to 133 in d2bff11

	public void putContext(IEditorInput input, InputContext context) {
	inputContexts.put(input, context);
	fireContextChange(context, true);
	}

Could you pls give me some highlights on how I should be taking this further?

[laeubi]

PropertiesFile for p2.inf belongs to org.eclipse.jdt.internal.ui repo

You mean properties file editor is part of JDT? I don't think reusing the properties file editor has much benefits here, while it can be used as an inspiration.

Could you pls give me some highlights on how I should be taking this further?

I think you can get some insight in how the pde.bnd or build.properties tabs work in PDE manifest editor. I also found that the AI agent tools are often good enough to give a first idea if they can work on examples I have fired up a session here for you, it usually takes about 10- 20 minutes until first results are pushed:

• Add p2.inf editor tab to ManifestEditor and FeatureEditor laeubi/eclipse.pde#78

[laeubi]

I also asked to generate a documentation about how to generally extend the PDE editors here:

https://github.com/laeubi/eclipse.pde/blob/77a4fdd56217cc52c489061c3711455a0964c8c3/docs/Extending_PDE_Editors.md

[nburnwal09]

Thank you @laeubi
I will check them.