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Bug 346534

Summary:	a project with no deploy descriptor should not open an empty web.xml file
Product:	[WebTools] WTP Java EE Tools	Reporter:	David Williams <david_williams>
Component:	jst.j2ee	Assignee:	Diego Sahagun <diegosr>
Status:	NEW ---	QA Contact:	Chuck Bridgham <cbridgha>
Severity:	enhancement
Priority:	P3	CC:	ccc
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	Future
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:

Description David Williams

2011-05-19 15:55:41 EDT

I was testing Indigo RC2. 
Created a dynamic project with no deployment descriptor. 
created a few servlets and filters (which wouldn't be required to see the problem) 

And noticed if I double click on any of the "top level" nodes in the "Deployment Descriptor" node, such as Filters, Servlets, etc, an empty web.xml file is opened which (as any empty xml file would) has a message that says "this file is empty, right click to add content". If I do not add content, at least no empty web.xml file is created, so that's good. 

But, the "empty file" message does not seem very useful, and even confusing, and will be annoying as people use web.xml files less and less. 

Seems it'd be more useful to expand the tree node (as double clicking Deployment Descriptor:" does ... or, maybe show a dialog that says "there is no web.xml file for this project do you want to create one?" ... but only if such a dialog had a "do not show this message again" checkbox. I think the expansion idea is better, more useful, though. 

As I wrote this, I wonder now if "Deployment Descriptor:" node should be renamed? That seems in practice to always mean a "web.xml" file? Maybe it should be generically called "Deployment Description:" so it would fit both cases?