Bug 312485

Description Marc Dutoo 2010-05-11 14:47:54 EDT

Symptom :

In the workflow editor, right-clicking on a model element and selecting "new child" should display a list containing all child aspects (like custom Properties) that can be added to this element, but these are not there.


Analysis :

Debugging JWT 0.7 (fresh installed in a new Eclipse 3.5r2) or Scarbo 1.0 (RCP application including JWT) using remote debugging shows that JWT's use of the EMF.edit framework has not been configured to use aspects. More precisely, root JWT model elements and especially ModelElement should have an item provider adapter that extends AspectEnrichedItemProviderAdapter, but they extend rather ItemProviderAdapter directly. This has been detected by tracing the execution of the following overriden method :

protected void collectNewChildDescriptors(Collection newChildDescriptors, Object object)


Solution :

ModelElementItemProvider should extend AspectEnrichedItemProviderAdapter rather than ItemProviderAdapter, and in JWTMetaModel.genmodel the root should have the "Provider Root Extends Class" property set to "org.eclipse.jwt.we.conf.aspects.provider.AspectEnrichedItemProviderAdapter". Actually, it is already the case in the source code since January the 12th, 2010, so we only have to check it is still OK with the actual build of the upcoming yearly release.


Patch :

Patching the JWT 0.7 (or earlier) plugin jar with only the said slight change to  ModelElementItemProvider could be done if necessary.


Workaround :

Other Aspect features still work. For instance, the custom Property tab displays existing custom property aspects on the selected element and allow to change its value.

What is missing is the ability to create new aspect (or custom Property) instances. Here is a workaround : close the workflow being edited, open its .workflow_conf file using the Conf editor, and there copy and paste in the Model element an AspectInstance element that already has the right id, then select the workflow model element it decorates and save it. It'll then appear in its custom UI, for instance the custom Property tab if it is a custom Property.