Osmorc

IDEA XI is coming and so is a new version of Osmorc. The exact release date is yet to be told, but since JetBrains is already sending out mail about IDEA XI being "around the corner" it can't be that far. In this post I'm going to tell you about Osmorc's new release model starting with Osmorc 1.4.0, which comes bundled with IDEA XI.

On October 1st, I had the pleasure to attend to the 2011 OSGi code camp in Berlin. For a change, I used Eclipse to develop OSGi, so I had a chance to spend a full day using Neil Bartletts bndtools in action. That brought many insights on how to improve Osmorc.

I have just uploaded version 1.3.3 to the public repository. This version contains a lot of usability fixes and stability improvements as well as a few minor new features such as a global output path for all generated bundles. Users of IntelliJ Community Edition can now download this version using the plugin manager. This version already came bundled with IntelliJ Ultimate Edition 10.

IDEA X is nearing completion and has undergone a lot of internal changes, which make it necessary to create a specialized version of Osmorc for IDEA X, as the IDEA 9 version is not compatible to IDEA X. The IDEA X compatible branch of Osmorc will be version 1.3.x., while version 1.2.x will be the IDEA 9 branch of the plugin. Version 1.3.x will be available with the next EAP and will have the same amount of functionality as the upcoming version 1.2.2 for IDEA 9. Version 1.2.2 will be released with IDEA 9.0.4 - should JetBrains decide to release a 9.0.4 version of IntelliJ. If no 9.0.4 is being released, 1.2.2 will be uploaded to the plugin repository and can be updated manually using IntelliJs plugin manager.  

With the release of IDEA X, development in the 1.2.x series for IDEA 9 will be discontinued and version 1.3.x and above is the only branch that will receive new features. Bug fixing will focus on 1.3.x as well however on a case by case basis fixes to major bugs will be backported to 1.2.x. 

As it has been the case with IDEA 9 Osmorc will come bundled with IDEA X Ultimate edition so no manual upgrades are necessary. Users of the community edition can download the latest version of Osmorc using the plugin manager.

With version 1.2.2 SpringSource’s Bundlor manifest generating tool is now supported by Osmorc. In the facet settings there is a new option to use a Bundlor manifest template to generate the manifest for a module. The facet importer will also detect template.mf files in your project and set up the OSGi facet to use Bundlor in this case.

What’s currently not implemented is auto-bundling libraries with Bundlor (this is still done exlusively with bnd) and an import from the Bundlor maven plugin. These will be added in a future version.

Last week I started a small survey about which approach to manifest generation is more popular. The survey is still open for participation, so if you have not yet cast your vote, this would be the time to do it. The results so far:

• 88% do code first, while only 12% do manifest first.
• Top reasons for doing manifest first are: more control over the manifest, and IDE support showing non-available classes.
• Nearly all people who do code first think that a tool will do a better job creating a manifest than they would.
• Code first is also seen as less error-prone and faster to work with.

The final question provided somewhat puzzling results:

• Most of the comments suggested that it would not be a good idea to promote manifest first as it would encourage users to produce broken manifests.
• Yet again 40% voted for an improved manifest first support.

So the results are somewhat inconclusive. I was actually thinking about ditching manifest first support in Osmorc, yet it still seems to be a requested feature, apparently even by those who use the code-first approach. Then again only 17 people participated so far so deriving a trend from that would be premature.

Bottom line - I need more input. So if you haven’t done the survey yet, please do - it’s only 4 questions and probably done in a minute.

One thing that always bugged me, was Osmorc’s somewhat convoluted settings dialog. Usually in IntellIJ you have project settings and application settings in two areas of the settings dialog. Osmorc however always had both things mixed in the project settings area. This will change in 1.2.2, and things will go where they belong.

Additionally the whole thing has been refactored a lot internally so the settings dialog now opens 1 second faster (at least on my machine). And we all do like a faster settings dialog in IntelliJ, don’t we?

I’ve recently been going over the feature wishlist for Osmorc and I found quite some items regarding support for a “Manifest First” style of developing applications. From my experience it becomes increasingly difficult and complex to maintain a growing set of OSGi manifests in bigger projects by hand. And with tools such as BND or Bundlor available, I have a hard time in understanding why anyone would want to manually manage manifests.

Then again, these feature requests exist and they exist for a reason. To shed some light on these reasons I decided to put up a small survey about “Manifest First” vs. “Code First” and just ask for your feedback. It’s only four questions and it would really help me a lot in deciding which path to go with Osmorc in the future and spend the limited development time on the most important features.

So please take the survey and help improving Osmorc!

A new version of Osmorc has been released to the plugin repository. The changelog for this new version is:

Features

• You can now set up a default start level which will be used for starting your dependencies.
• The run configuration dialog now has some spinners for selecting the start level.
• You can now specify program parameters for pax runner in the run configuration.

Bugfixes

• Osmorc will no longer create facets for Maven projects which are not of type “bundle”.
• The facet importer will no longer use bundlor template manifests (template.mf) as source, but rather work on the generated manifests.
• Exploded bundles are now correctly started up.
• The bundle compiler will now issue a more usable message when a manifest file is missing.
• A few issues with the bnd wrapper have been resolved.
• Various reported exceptions have been fixed.

As usual your feedback on this version is most welcome. Should you find any bugs or have ideas for new features, please add them to our issue tracker.

Since the release of IntelliJ Community edition, many newcomers have taken a spin on IntelliJ. It is common that things like how to install plugins are not easily apparent to people who switch from other IDEs so I decided to make a small video showing how you can install Osmorc in IntelliJ IDEA Community edition.

A big thanks goes over to the guys at Vimeo who make creating and publishing videos a straightforward and easy thing.