Installing User Product a second, does things different than on initial setup

[phermsdorf]

Hi,

this is a follow-up question to #142 .

I now have a company specific configuration and 2 Project setup's that reference this "base configuration" (base in the sense of common settings that all/both projects should have in common without duplicating them in each project setup).

When i initially setup one of those projects by eg. drag'n'dropping the URL to the base configuration the installer pre-selects the correct eclipse product, both of my user projects and advances up to the variables page.

Question 1:
since the usual setup for us is to only install one of these user projects in one workspace (since they are very large) the user has to click back and de-select one of the user projects.
Is there any way to improve this? eg. let the user select which to install or some other handling? (now he needs to know to go back and de-select one - this can be forgotten)

One can then proceed with the installation successfully.

When the user later on want's to re-install such a project and starts the installer he cannot "start again" with drag'n'drop the URL of the Base Configuration -> this leads to an error. Probably because these two Projects are already listed on the second page of the installer under "User projects".
When now selecting one of the projects and pressing next to go the variables view, one can see that some of the variables are missing. When procceeding to the next/last step of the installer one can see that also some of the installation tasks/settings are missing.

What is missing here seems to be everything coming from the "Base Configuration".

Question 2:
What is the background of this behaviour (eg. leaving out the settings of the base configuration) even if it is referenced by a Configuration Reference?

  <annotation
      source="http://www.eclipse.org/oomph/setup/ConfigurationReference">
    <reference
        href="BaseConfiguration.setup?oomph_basic_auth=true#/"/>
  </annotation>

Proceeeding with installation here would end up in non-complete setup.

To be able to reinstall one of these projects successfully again the following steps need to be done by the user:

1. start the installer
2. on the second page remove all "User Projects"
3. close the installer
4. start the installer again
5. start the installation like on the first time with drag'n'frop or by having the URL to the base configuration in the clipboard

Question 3:
Is there anything that can be done making this re-install use-case more easy/less error-prone for the users?

Thank you for any hints on this!

Bye Peter

[merks]

A configuration is designed (currently implemented) to be the complete set of choices. For the Platform there is this huge one that clones all the projects of the entire SDK:

https://github.com/eclipse-platform/.github/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#creating-an-eclipse-development-environment

But then some of the subprojects have smaller configurations for just the one git clone for that subproject:

https://github.com/eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.swt?tab=readme-ov-file#contributing-to-swt

There must be some mismatch between the URLs. Open the project catalog, here the github one and find the user extension:

Use the context menu to open it in a text editor and look at the exact details of the URL, e.g., here my private repository for my company website.

Consider carefully exactly the form of the serialized URI that is used in the configuration setup. Is it absolute? Probably you can avoid problems by ensuring it is the correct example absolute URI in the setup serialziation because a relative URI might be resolved in a way you might not expected, i.e., differently depending on the URI used to load the configuration setup. Are the project setups and the configuration setup all hosted in the same git repository?

Also there is the question of how the URI for the logical project container is specified in the project setup, here it's absolute via the path from the index:

  <logicalProjectContainer
      xsi:type="setup:ProjectCatalog"
      href="index:/org.eclipse.setup#//@projectCatalogs[name='com.github']"/>

There are lots of ways to mess this up.

In general, if you use Navigate -> Open Setup -> Parent Models -> Catalog Index and show all the resources, you can get an idea of what's being loaded and might notice errors or duplicates (i.e., the same resource loaded via multiple different URIs).

[phermsdorf]

I don't think that's a UI bug or something, because on the next page eg. the eclipse.ini settings from the configuration are missing as well.

In the User setup of the provisioned Eclipse I see this:

---

I like the idea to simplify the overall setup by just using a Parent Project with common settings and then subsequent sub-rpojects.
I started again with a setup based on the "Setup Project Catalog Model" wizard, but I'm now missing the point to reference/include eg. the Eclipse for RCP/RAP Developers 2025-03 like I was able to do in the configuration before.

I see this:

I tried adding an Installation Node like in the Configuration before, but I'm not able to drag and drop the eclipse product from below like in the configuration e.g. on the Installation Node .... I'm probably on the wrong path here :(

[merks]

If the tasks are missing but there are no errors that suggests they are silently not being copied to the target installation.setup and workspace.setup. I'd really need to debug that. I have no theory for how/why that would happen.

---

I didn't suggest to create a project catalog but rather to create a parent project, e.g., like this one has subprojects:

https://github.com/eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.releng.aggregator/blob/4ae66aba18249f0361aa7634723cbd29675f579f/oomph/Platform.setup#L945-L946

Where the subprojects can be in separate resources:

[phermsdorf]

Ok, I see the href reference to the other .setup files now and got your point on how to include subprojects via this mechanism.

Do one need to include such a href manually in the xml code? I was not able to see something like that in the properties editor. Maybe it's a generic referecing mechanism ...

What I still don't get is:

1. Given I would setup such a project structure, how would I get that runnable/included in the Installer? eg. when putting the URL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eclipse-platform/eclipse.platform.releng.aggregator/4ae66aba18249f0361aa7634723cbd29675f579f/oomph/Platform.setup in the clipboard and try to apply it via the toolbar button in the installer, i get an error popup saying that this is (obviously) a project setup ...

2. How to connect such a Project setup with a Eclipse Product, eg. Rap/RCP 2025-03? Or would the user select the Prooduct on the first page of the installer and then select (somehow) the custom/user Project to setup on the second page?

Thanks for your patience ...

[merks]

From the context menu of a nested Project in the editor you can use Control... to externalized it to a separate resource.

You still use your configuration like before, it just would have way less task in it; only references to the products and the projects. The new root project should have the logical project container pointing at the catalog like what you have/had for each separate project. And then each separate project should have the logical project container be the new root project. And if you get all the URIs correct, it will work like magic. (It's all easier if you Didn't need all the ? basic auth stuff.)

I'm not being paid enough and this cuts into the thing for which I do get pain. 😁

[phermsdorf]

I now have a working setup 😃
I can start using the URL to the configuration in the clipboard or re-install by selecting a user project on the second page of the installer.

I stripped down the configuration and added references to my projects like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<setup:Configuration
    xmi:version="2.0"
    xmlns:xmi="http://www.omg.org/XMI"
    xmlns:setup="http://www.eclipse.org/oomph/setup/1.0"
    label="AFS">
  <installation
      name="afs.installation"
      label="AFS Installation">
    <productVersion
        href="index:/org.eclipse.setup#//@productCatalogs[name='org.eclipse.products']/@products[name='epp.package.rcp']/@versions[name='2025-03']"/>
    <description></description>
  </installation>
  <workspace
      name="afs.workspace"
      label="AFS Workspace">
    <stream
        href="AFSDevelopment.setup?oomph_basic_auth=true#//@projects[name='foundation']/@streams[name='main']"/>
    <stream
        href="AFSDevelopment.setup?oomph_basic_auth=true#//@projects[name='genetics']/@streams[name='main']"/>
    <description></description>
  </workspace>
  <description></description>
</setup:Configuration>

Even the relative references now "just work", I only added the ? basic_auth parameter.

The Projects are now located in one Project setup file with the common settings coming first and then project specific settings are defined in the corresponding sub-projects.

Basically the setup is not that much different than before, but this time it works ;)

Thanks again Ed for your help!

Bye Peter

[merks]

That's awesome! 🥳 Thank you for sharing your success story!