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It is a bit of a pain that people have to hunt down the links to the latest versions of the various Eclipse downloads. It would be useful to have "latest" links for the various elements. for example http://eclipse.org/eclipse/latestRelease http://eclipse.org/eclipse/latestMilestone ...
+1 Sounds like a great idea... Prehaps something that can be incorporated into Bjorn's project-info framework?
sounds like fun.
*** Bug 133018 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Until we can accurately centralize all the projects' releases, this will be difficult. This specific task in at bug 164390
*** Bug 190980 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I am going to re-iterate bug 190980 comment 4: This bug really makes me sad :(
Make us all happy and attach a patch :)
Blocking bug 164390 has been closed and we're centralizing the whole ProjectInfo system into a DB that will be queryable. Closing this bug will be within reach shortly if someone wants to contribute a patch after we release the Portal component to manage the data.
Great! I assume there will be some info on how projects can define "latest" etc
(In reply to comment #9) > Great! I assume there will be some info on how projects can define "latest" Why not just sort the page by the builds' datestamps? http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/downloads/?sortBy=date We provide a box on the right for Sort By Type and Sort By Date, so people have choice. Even Wassim should be made happy with that. ;-P Feel free to steal code as needed: /cvsroot/org.eclipse/www/modeling/includes/downloads-common.php
Thanks Nick. Interesting direction. the original request was for a series of latests. Can you sort based on type of build? Also we are looking for a URL that would always point to the latest. The approach you outline gives a URL that points to a page that points to the latest. Can you see a way of removing that middle page?
(In reply to comment #11) > Thanks Nick. Interesting direction. the original request was for a series of > latests. Can you sort based on type of build? Our download pages are sortable by type then date [1], or just by date [2]. [1]http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/downloads/?sortBy=type [2]http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/downloads/?sortBy=date > Also we are looking for a URL that would always point to the latest. You mean the latest SDK zip? or latest build download page? > The approach you outline gives a URL that points to a page that points to the latest. Can you see a way of removing that middle page? It wouldn't take much to render this page as xml, plain text, or even the page as is... but only for a single (latest) release. Is that what you're thinking? Or are you looking for a link to the lastest SDK zip by iteself, without the metadata and other zips? The other option would be to read our RSS feeds [3] and extract the first <entry/> from the feed to always get the latest build: [3]http://www.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/feeds/ (click the EMF link) If you wanted to filter by type or branch, just load the RSS feed as an EMF object (or DOM tree) and parse it for the specific <entry/> you want -- the first one listed matching whatever filter criteria you want. I suggest EMF because there's a schema [4] for this feed, and also existing EMF code for validating a feed document [5] w.r.t. that schema, so it would make a handy starting point for writing your parser/reader/renderer. Oh, and I also have code for "watching" feeds [5] (which pretty much does what you'd need here too -- point it at a feed URL and ask it to either check if the feed's changed (and how) or just download the latest feed and extract data from it). [4]http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.releng.basebuilder/plugins/org.eclipse.build.tools/schema/?sortdir=down&pathrev=releng_test [5]http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.releng.basebuilder/plugins/org.eclipse.build.tools/scripts_rss/?pathrev=releng_test For more on feeds and feed tools, see the 'getting started' page in the wiki [6]. [6]http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Category:RSS
wow, I am a Troglodyte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodyte :-) Having all the possibilities is cool but in the end we just want to supply people with a link like http://eclipse.org/eclipse/latestRelease and have it mean something to them. As in they click on it and get some bytes. This should be available for any file download (individual JARs, whole SDK zips, ...). Does one of these approaches do that?
(In reply to comment #13) > wow, I am a Troglodyte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troglodyte Um, the fifth definition on that page gives me waaaaaaaay too much information about you than what I ever needed.
(In reply to comment #13) > we want to supply people with a link like > http://eclipse.org/eclipse/latestRelease and have it mean something I'd suggest that unless you want one link per platform & type (and maybe branch, too?) ... eclipse.org/eclipse/latestReleaseSDKWin32, eclipse.org/eclipse/latestReleaseSDKMacOS, eclipse.org/eclipse/latestReleaseSDKLinuxGTK, eclipse.org/eclipse/latestReleaseSDKLinux_64, eclipse.org/eclipse/latestReleasePlatformRuntimeBinarySolaris, eclipse.org/eclipse/latestReleaseWin64... ... you'd be better off linking to a page listing these options, such as to http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/#latest (Much less maintenance that way.) If you just want shorter vanity URLs like "http://eclipse.org/modelimg/mdt/uml2/latest" to point to the actual page, /modeling/mdt/downloads/?project=uml2&sortBy=date#latest, all you need are simple index.php pages like this, to redirect users from the short URL to the actual page: $ cat index.php <?php header("Location: /modeling/mdt/downloads/?project=uml2&sortBy=date#latest"); ?> Does that solve the problem, or do you need something more complicated? Incidentally, who in the community (aside from Jeff, of course) has actually asked for such a feature / reported such a problem? Would it in fact be better to just make it easier to find http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ instead of the convoluted series of links required to find it today? 1. http://www.eclipse.org/ -> click downloads 2. http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ -> click By topic 3. http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/index_project.php -> click Eclipse Platform 4. http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/ (For 64-bit users in #eclipse on irc.freenode, this is a rather frequently asked question -- "where can I find downloads for my platform if they're not listed on http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ ?".)
> (For 64-bit users in #eclipse on irc.freenode, this is a rather frequently > asked question -- "where can I find downloads for my platform if they're not > listed on http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ ?".) I've opened bug 205136 so that we can hopefully end this. Also, I know the EPP team is working on linux x86_64 packages, so that should also bring some happiness.
(In reply to comment #14) > Um, the fifth definition on that page gives me waaaaaaaay too much information > about you than what I ever needed. I only got to the first definition because I am "a very, slow, unintelligent, dimwitted person"... :-)
On bug 205205, I suggested that perhaps we should have an http://www.eclipse.org/earlyadopters page that lists milestones and I-builds and etc across all the Eclipse projects. Perhaps this bug and that suggestion can be combined. Gathering together good ideas from many folks, I'm thinking: INPUT: * Each project that wants to participate can register any number of Nick-format RSS streams (http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Category:RSS) using their project meta-data in the portal. * At regular intervals (once an hour?), we'll check those RSS streams and recompute the page's database. PAGE: * By default the page will list the latest builds from the RSS streams in strict date-time order, most recent first. * Perhaps we should have a different default? Maybe the list should be sorted by the most popular downloads first, i.e., the most recent RSS build result for the most popular download first, then the most recent RSS build result for the second most popular download second, etc. * The page will have a set of dropdown filters or "buttons of popularity" at the top. These could filter by date, by type (milestone, I-build), by project/packaging (Eclipse RCP, Modeling Amalgation, ...), etc. These filters would filter the list. * The page would look more or less like the Eclipse Top-Level Project downloads page (well, except that it would Phoenix skinned) (http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/downloads/) in that it would list Project, Build Type, Build Id, Date. OTHER: * The source RSS feeds would be listed on the page so that if someone wanted to subscribe to the feeds themselves, they would have one simple place to find the feeds. * The page will have a descriptive paragraph at the top talking about early adopters and helping to support the projects through community-based testing and that these are not real releases and that there could be unchecked IP in these downloads. What else?
(In reply to comment #18) > * we'll check those RSS streams and recompute the page's database. You can also ensure that the requirements match, if you want to. For example, BIRT might have built with 3.4M6a, but CDT built with the-I-build-that-came-out-a-week-later. If you're going to provide a one-stop-shopping experience, it might be valuable to verify these deps are properly listed & match, for cases where, say, EMF ran with a post-M6a I build, but WTP (which prereqs EMF) used M6a instead of a newer I build. Maybe all you need is some colour coding to suggest 100% dependency match (black) vs. partial match (dark grey, or italic), so that end-users are aware of this possible disconnect, but not scared away or overwhelmed. > * By default the page will list the latest builds from the RSS streams in > strict date-time order, most recent first. > * Perhaps we should have a different default? Maybe the list should be sorted > by the most popular downloads first Most popular seems like an odd metric. If I want the one that will help me with web dev, I don't care if it has more dls than the one that will help me with C++ dev. I'm not going to install software just because the herd says it's good. Does anyone ever look at sourceforge download options and think, "well, I should get the .zip instead of the .tar.gz because more people like that one, even though it's a bigger file" ? :) There are two ways *I*'d allow users to sort such an application, based on feedback we've gotten on the Modeling project's download pages. See comment 12. With 'sort by type' I can see additional options: top-down (eclise; emf, gef, cdt; uml2, ocl, emf-qtv, tptp, birt; wtp, gmf; ... -- in order of # of dependencies) or bottom-up (biggest stack to simplest stack). Not sure which makes more sense for the end-user. With Modeling, we list SDK first, smaller downloads below, because it's assumed that we should be putting the most likely option first. But with a composite list of downloads/projects, should that be Eclipse first & foremost above the fold, or the top level projects/EPP bundles (WTP, TPTP, BIRT, CDT, GMF...) ? There's also the "by update site category" approach, like what Europa, Ganymede, and Yoxos provide. Which, naturally, begs the question: rather than creating a whole new user experience, what about just reusing what Yoxos provides, and linking to it from eclipse.org? "Too many download choices? You could download the Eclipse SDK and then install whatever plugins you'd like into that using the p2 Install Manager. Or, try Yoxos' Eclipse On Demand service [1], to download everything you might need in one bundle." [1] http://www.yoxos.com/ondemand/
(In reply to comment #19) > If you're going to provide a one-stop-shopping experience, ... > Which, naturally, begs the question: rather than creating a whole new user > experience, what about just reusing what Yoxos provides, and linking to it from > eclipse.org? An interesting idea, but Yoxos doesn't supply the latest I-builds and milestones which is what my proposal (comment #18) is about. > Most popular seems like an odd metric. Just trying to figure out a way to sort the list of latest builds so that most people can find what they are looking for. No claim that my ideas are the best - I was just theorizing that if we strictly took two dozen RSS feeds and merged them by date, we'd end up with a list where the most recent I-build of, say, the Eclipse Java SDK was no where near the top even though most people were looking for that download. And then we'd be back in the same position we are now where it's hard to find the milestones and I-builds for the community to help with testing.
Projects can now maintain their download links with the Eclipse PMI. For example: https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/modeling.emft.emf-store/downloads https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/technology.paho/downloads
