Monday, August 26, 2013

Preferences Browser plug-in

Another week, another tool: this time I developed a small utility to browse the preferences store.

The preferences dialog allows to conveniently edit user preferences. But there seems to be no easy way to find out which preference key is used for a dedicated dialog checkbox. Additionally not all preferences are customizable using the preferences dialog.

The Preferences Browser allows to view all available keys and automatically updates on any change. Editing support is available too, but use it with care as you might corrupt your preferences.

By enabling Track changes you can highlight changed keys while you are editing your preferences.


Finally you may export selected nodes and their values to a text file.

If you find this little tool useful you may install it directly from my update site:
http://codeandme.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/tools/com.codeandme.tools.releng.p2/update/


9 comments:

  1. Hi,

    Great idea and thank you for having done it. It's a pity it cannot be installed on Eclipse 3.8/4.2 as long as you require the bundle org.eclipse.core.runtime at least in version 3.9. Is it really necessary? Do you really use some new APIs from 3.9? I really think you should try to make it compatible with 3.8/4.2.

    Best regards,
    Mikael

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I finally had time to lower dependencies to 3.7 (Indigo). I did not test it on an older release so i cross my fingers that it workss :)
      Fetch it from the update site!

      Delete
  2. Nice first impression. If your export would accept selecting leaf items instead of nodes only, it would be a nice addition to using Workspace Mechanic. Do you have plans to make minor updates to this tool (like import and export setting files)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Your wish is my command. Import/export works now, you may also add/delete keys/nodes by now. Import is quite dangerous though as importing a node will not add to an existing node, but replace it! this seems to be the default preferences behavior of eclipse.

      Delete
  3. This solution came just in time with my problem of getting an overview of the preference store. Great work, thank you a lot!
    Since my application target platform is still on 3.7, I changed the org.eclipse.core.runtime requirement to 3.7.0 and it still works. Maybe you could lower that restriction.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hy, unfortunately your plugin does only work for dependencies with org.eclipse.core.runtime = 3.9.0 - it would however be usable on pre 3.9 versions, wouldn't it? Could you relax the requirements here? thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nice - having worked with "Common Preferences (bug 334016)" to deal with the problem of sharing preferences between installations and workspaces - see: https://github.com/fredrikattebrant/common_preferences/ - this is a nice complement. Should probably combine the tools a nice solution covering browsing/editing/sharing and automatic setting of preferences.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Joining forces is a good idea. For me this was more a showcase than a productive tool for eclipse. I guess for an everyday user this might be too rough to handle. To make it really useful some bugs on the import would have to be fixed. Eg when importing some properties of a node all previous existing properties of the node are deleted - even those which would not be affected by the import. Seems like a platform problem to me, but I did not have time to investigate further.

      Delete
  6. Need a quick loan to solve a problem? Are you able to repay? If so, leave us a message: sabitbeqiri012@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete