How to make the PDE target definition editor show all plug-ins?

Question

We aim at using Tycho+Eclipse PDE to build OSGi bundles in a distributed team.

So far artifacts are built and deployed to a Nexus OSS repository. This has been augmented with p2 support, "artifacts.xml" and "content.xml" are generated (or supplied by Tycho) and correctly resolved by Tycho and the p2 Browser.

The missing link is to add the resultant p2 bundle repository to the target platform definition used by PDE. The PDE target editor apparently only supports features or "categorized" plugins, no plain bundles.

Tycho's repository plugin and feature-packaging of bundles independently developed by different partners appears too cumbersome to synchronize. We'd like to adhere to simple Maven/OBR-like sharing of bundles via a single repository.

Is there a way to enhance the bundle's or repository's p2 metadata in terms of a generic category as suggested in this blog, e.g. either via the "tycho-p2-publisher:publish-categories" goal or by configuring/extending the "Nexus p2 Repository Plugin" to make them accessible to the PDE UI ?

This questions seems related to this question, with a hint that support for the "iu" syntax is not implemented yet.

Apomict

PDE can only see root IUs. Features and categorized items get treated as root IUs, but it should be possible to mark other IUs as being root. wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox/p2/… – Thirtieth

The indicated page and other sources are quite cryptical about the "root UIs". In our case we build and provision plain bundles via Maven/Tycho. What does it mean in concrete words to "explicitly provision" an installable unit in order to become a "root UI" (and thus become visible for PDE) ? – Apomict

The p2 metadata (content.xml) determines whether an IU is a Root IU. How to set up the correct p2 metadata during the Maven/Tycho build is outside my knowledge base. – Thirtieth

Answer 1

Maybe you should try another target editor. There exists a alternative TPD editor/generator from Mikaël Barbero with some useful features:

• autocomplition
• version management
• mergeable structure
• ...

Basque