 | Level: Intermediate Kelvin X. Jiang (kxj1@columbia.edu), Student
Melih Onvural (monvura@ncsu.edu), Student
08 Dec 2006 With the recent development of a Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) server-side implementation, you can now extend traditional Eclipse plug-ins as Web services. Using the Eclipse Equinox Incubator server-side project, an implementation of the OSGi framework that you can deploy on an application server, you can package and dynamically load Eclipse plug-ins in a Web application server. You can expose plug-ins as Web services, and at the same time allow them to interact with other plug-ins that were intended for client-side applications. In this tutorial
- This tutorial shows how this method unleashes the power of Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) onto the Web.
- You'll get step-by-step instructions to transform a "Hello World" Eclipse plug-in to a Web service using Eclipse Equinox and then how to deploy it within Axis.
Prerequisites
Readers should be familiar with Eclipse plug-ins, Web services, and Web application servers (such as Tomcat). The tutorial takes advantage of Eclipse Equinox V3.2 deployed in Apache Tomcat 5.5.x. It also uses Apache Axis 1.x. as the base for the Java Web services. It assumes prior experience with Apache Tomcat, Apache Axis, and the Eclipse development environment (including basic plug-in development). Before you begin, it would be helpful to familiarize yourself with Eclipse Equinox in a server-side environment (for more information, please see the Resources section).
System requirements
The only system requirements for this tutorial are a running application server, the Eclipse application, and access to the necessary packages.
Formats html, pdf
Summary
Most people would describe Eclipse as an IDE that simplifies Java-based application development. However, underneath the IDE sits a foundation, known as the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) layer, that makes the Eclipse platform both extensible and powerful. This layer is developed within the Eclipse Equinox project, which is an instance of the OSGi framework. The layer, through the power of OSGi, also permits the drop-and-restart plug-in installation model. In Eclipse 3.2, the technology that supported the Eclipse RCP layer as a client-side application was developed for the server side. Now Equinox server-side, through the work of the Eclipse Equinox project, allows you to extend the Eclipse framework's power and extensibility beyond client-side applications. This tutorial takes Equinox server-side technology and adds Web services ability to create an Eclipse plug-in-based Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).
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