View source for Solid:Builders

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Builders should be able to create flat and jarred versions of extensions or XULrunner applications.

Do we need a preprocessor or some sorts?

== Alternatives ==

=== Makefile ===
Pros:

Cons:
* need Makefile in build
* lots of extra tools required
* no good dependency tracking for jars

=== Standalone ===
Pros:
* easy to ship

Cons:
* lots of code to duplicate

Note that my Extension Developer's extension has a standalone build system,
and it wasn't terribly hard to put together.  The hardest part was finding
a suitable zip tool on the user's system, and knowing how to call that.
--[[User:Luser|Luser]] 06:25, 21 Jun 2005 (PDT)

I'd prefer to have something hooked up to eclipse, so at least one implementation will be java based. I'm currently thinking about a helper jar that the ant task and an eclipse builder can hook into.
--[[User:AxelHecht|AxelHecht]] 08:26, 21 Jun 2005 (PDT)

i dont think [http://ant.apache.org ANT] is the right solution 
because the eclipse build process is started very often by eclipse
(especially when "incremental build" is enabled) - and [http://ant.apache.org ANT] builds are somewhat time consuming. i have some experience with 
both [http://ant.apache.org ANT] based eclipse builders and 
custom builders - it will slow down xul development very much. 
--[[User:Lgersman|LarsGersmann]] 11:10, 23 Aug 2005 (PDT)

=== Ant task ===
Pros:
* easy to ship, ant already comes with eclipse
* known to quite a few java coders

Cons:
* ant not really known in the mozilla world


=== Export Wizards ===

The XUL Builder should only be used 
to validate/verify the project (check dependencies,
error/warning marker creation etc.).
I would like to have Export Wizards for creating jarred
versions (and for creating xpi's too). The Eclipse JDT/PDE
does it the same way - export wizards generate the jars
(i.e. installable packages). 

It should be possible to provide a wizard to collect all needed 
informations from the user and to generate an [http://ant.apache.org ANT] Build File. by the way - +1 for using [http://ant.apache.org ANT] files (despite its cons) - should be our choice.
--[[User:Lgersman|Lars Gersmann]]

== Topics ==
* do we want wildcards? (yes, AxelHecht)
* do we want a preprocessor? (yes, AxelHecht)

== Configuration file ==
Let's scratch-pad an XML configuration file to be used to pack content/locale/skin.

 <?xml version="1.0"?>
 <!-- should we have a namespace? -->
 <solid:packager>
   <solid:package type="content" use-preprocessor="yes">
     <solid:include pattern="src/content//*.xul"/>
     <solid:include pattern="src/content//*.js"/>
     <solid:destination pattern="chrome://foo/content"/>
   </solid:package>
 </solid:packager>

Wether the content goes to the build dir, unjarred or is jarred up would best be up to a build.properties file, I guess.