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This is a bug that initiates a discussion - we need to find a solution that leads to a better user experience. We have many preferences that are not set on project level, but on workspace level. A good example of this are the settings of the VO. It is annoying to enter these settings manually every time you start with a new workspace. - Does it makes sense to write import/export functionality for some or all (???) them. - In which cases does it make sense to store them within the project? That enables the possibility of a repository check-in/check-out - ...?
My few cents: 1. The vision is that the users has finally just one workspace. This workspace is setup once and for ever! Currently we as developers suffer on the missing functionality you mentioned. 2. We have to select carefully which "meta data" we put in projects and which one in the workspace. I.e. if you store VO in the project space, then the user has to type in the data everytime he starts with a new project/application for that VO. That would not lead to a good user experience. 3. Concerning the import/export functionality, I support your idea. But again, we have to select the right "properties" very carefully. But just a "export/import from file" seems not to be enough. Better would be a "import from URL" feature, as we have already for the CA-certificates. I hope to get more comments from others.
I also wanted to open a similar feature request. I wasn't thinking about a general import and export functionality. I was thinking of a import/export functionality especially for the "VO Selection Page" and VO-Declarations preferences page. Maybe import and export buttons should be added to the relevant plugins (instead of one general settings import and export functionality). There should not be too many plugins where this would be the case anyway. Since the VO settings are usually something nobody remembers it would improve usability if VO definitions could be stored to/loaded from files. Therefore two additional buttons in the "VO Selection Page" should be added next to the "New VO..." button. Those settings could be stored to a properties file or some sort of XML file. The same applies for the VO-Declarations preferences page.
Well, in fact I know that we do not want to have something like a central service. But in my opinion this would be the best solution concerning the VOs. Let my outline the solution I have in mind: 1) Offer the user a "webspace" where he may upload (via export) his VO settings (i.e. a repository). 2) When creating a new VO within g-Eclipse give the user the chance to browse this repository. If he is lucky someone else has made his VO settings public before. In that case ha can just import these settings from the repository. If there is no such setting he has to define his VO by himself like he does at the moment. 3) If he has defined his VO ask the user if he wants to share these settings with other users, i.e. export the new VO setting to the repository. In that way the repository would grow with time and would hold more and more VOs. Since these VOs are kind of immutable this would be a great chance to offer a central repository for VO settings. So in that sense this would be no "central service" that is necessary for the work with g-Eclipse (like for instance Migrating desktop has) but a user friendly service that the user may use or may not use. We could also offer such a service for CA certificates since at the moment we rely on an external service which is definitely not the best solution. If this service somewhen in the futures shuts down we are left alone. Think about it, any comment is appreciated...
That also sounds good, then a "Import from repository", a "Import from file" and a "Export to file" button would be the way to go I suppose, right?
Continuing this ticket with the input from a discussion with Fredric Schaer from EGEE/CIC. These guys are preparing an XML file which contains all information for the EGEE registered VOs. This file will be published in the net under one URL. The user can get a list of VOs and can select the one interesting for him. So the URL for the "import from repository" seems to exist already!
Hope you will be able to fix it until that release!
Since the discussion in this thread leaded to the point that the import/export functionality would be useful only for VOs and I just created a related plan item I will mark this bug as duplicate. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 196941 ***
Closing this duplicate
