ESAG XMT Connector for Mylyn Files

//XMT-Connector - What is it and why would I want it//

The XMT connector is a means of accessing the tasks you created with the eXtreme Management Tool (XMT) plone product using the Eclipse task infrastructure.
You can view and edit existing XMT tasks as well as attach and retrieve task contexts for these tasks.
The connector also has queries, which are filtered views on the tasks (e.g. to see only the tasks of one author). 


 //Installing the connector (and setting up the update site in Eclipse)//
 
 Choose Help -> Install New Software...
 An Dialog opens, click 'Add...', another subdialog to add an update site is shown.
 Enter a new name (e.g. 'XMT update site'), then click 'Local' and choose the folder you extracted the update site archive to (e.g. C:\somedir\\XMTConnectorSite\).
 After Closing the subdialog with 'OK', the newly created update site is selected and a signle category named 'XMT Connector' is shown in the tree view in the middle of the dialog.
 Expand this node to see the 'XMT connector feature', which you should select.
 Now proceed through the installation by clicking 'Next >' and going through the usual plugin installation pages.
 Finally you should restart to complete the plugin installation.

 
 //Updating the connector//
 
 To update the XMT connector, you should gat a new version of the archive containing the update site and extract it to the same location you did last time.
 Then you can use the eclipse update functionality (Help -> Check for Updates) to update the connector.
 Deselect all but the xmt update site and proceed. The update process should be familiar, as it is similar to the initial installation of the connector.
 Finally restart eclipse to apply the update.
 

//Updating the connector site (to publish a new version of the connector)//

The connector site is the central place to build a new version of the connector (consisting of the connector feature, which in turn contains the two connector plugins).
If you build the update site as decribed below, the verion qualifier (d in a a.b.c.d version string) of the connector feature and plugins is automatically updated.
This creates a higher version number than existing xmt connector version, which in turn makes updates work without explicitly increaing thte version number of the feature or plugins.
Regardless of this you can also manually increase the version numbers by editing the appropriate XML files of the xmt feature or plugins.

To build and publish a new version of the connector,
delete the folders 'features' and 'plugins' as well as the files 'artifacts.jar' and 'content.jar'.
Then open the 'site.xml' file. Choose the 'Site Map' tab of the editor that opens.
There one can specify which categories and features should be part of the update site.
The existing category de.esag.xmt.category is the category destined for the XMT connector feature.
The connector feature below this category should now be removed by right-clicking on it and selectiong 'Remove'.
This step has to be performed, because this feature node refers to an old version of the XMT feature.
Following that we add the xmt feature again - this time with the correct version.
To do this, select the xmt category and click 'Add Feature...'.
In the text box of the dialog that opens type '*xmt' (star xmt).
The list of features below is now filtered to a few XMT features of various versions.
Select the feature, which version ends with '.qualifier' and close the dialog by clicking ok.
Now you can build a updated XMT update site by clicking 'Build all'.
After that zip (compress) the folder on the hard disk that contains the Eclipse project 'XMTConnecotorSite' and publish it (e.g. by sending it to somebody via email).
This archive can than be used as described under 'Installing the connector' and 'Updating the connector', respectively.
 
 
 //Technical details// 
The connector is split into two 2 Eclpse plugios:
- de.esag.xmt.core for the communicating with the XMT plone server
- de.esag.xmt.ui for the presentation aspects in Eclipse

To undertsand the inner workings of the connector the class XMTRepositoryConnector is a good starting point.

The plone side (the XMT itself) also needs modifications.
Those consist mainly of restricted python scripts that are called by the connector to send and retrieve task data.
The schema of the plone 'Task' type has to be updated to include a 'file' field, which is used to  hold the Eclipse task context.