[Tfug] Eclipse add-ons

[Bexley Hall]

Hi Robert,

On 6/6/2013 10:01 PM, Robert Hunter wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 5:24 PM, Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> alternatively, an understanding of the various details
>> embedded in the archives themselves that would enable me to
>> act AS IF i was the client.
>
> http://goo.gl/rGPbp

Yeah, I had pretty much sussed-out this just by examining the
"archives" that Eclipse is happy opening vs. those that it
chokes on (e.g., contents.jar and artifacts.jar -- containing
contents.xml and artifacts.xml, respectively -- seem to be a
necessary precondition for the archive to be recognized).

Contents.xml appears to enumerate the contents (surprise!) of
the archive, tagging each offering with what it "provides" as
well as what it "requires".  Empirically, I've verified this
corresponds with the commentary Eclipse provides during the
plugin's installation.

But, I haven't been able to get from there to a URL, etc. that
I can manually access.  I.e., it appears (for at least *some*
of these dependencies) that Eclipse must fetch the package
itself.  (Then, why offer alternatives to allow the user to
install from a local archive???)

[N.B. Some packages can be located and downloaded manually.
There doesn't seem to be any consistency, though...]

<shrug>

I'll take a peek at it later.  I'll be spending the night baking a
cheesecake (sigh)

--don