The document discusses a proposed solution to decouple Eclipse's resource hierarchy from REST URL hierarchies when working with remote content repositories. It involves introducing a semantic file system that would sparsely mount REST resources into the Eclipse workspace using content providers. This would handle differences between repository implementations while also supporting features like team collaboration and content versioning. Diagrams and code examples are provided to illustrate how the semantic file system would integrate with Eclipse and allow development tools to work with REST resources similarly to local resources.

1. Eduard Bartsch
SAP AG
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2. Background
Proposed Solution
Demo
Next Steps
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3. Project ERP
Explorer & Co
Editors Service
Repository
Compare
& Merge Content
Management
Problems
…
View
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4. Both cases are about Resources as key
abstraction:
Resource is any information that can be named
Resources have state (that may change over time)
Resources expose uniform interface
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5. Hierarchic Content Structuring Flat Content Structuring
Rather balanced and deep file/folder E.g. with big amount of
trees resources beneath a root URL
Content-independent Storage (Often) Content-aware Storage
Concrete Well-defined APIs REST is Architectural Style and
Collaboration Built-in not even a Network Protocol
Team Provider
Collaboration out of Scope
Merge/Compare
Has to be solved on top
Mylyn
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6. Project ERP
Explorer & Co
Editors Service
Repository
Semantic
File
Compare System
& Merge Content
Management
Problems
…
View
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7. Decouple Eclipse Resource Hierarchy from
REST URL hierarchy
Sparsely mount REST resources into Eclipse
Workspace
Introduce an SPI and additional Content
Provider in order to handle
Differences between repository-specific REST
implementations
Repository-specific and content-specific semantics
Team & Collaboration support
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8. Normal Folder Source Repository
Resource File
Subfolder Subfolder
Semantic Folder REST Repository
Resource
Resource
Subfolder
Resource
Resource
Resource
Resource
Subfolder
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9. <<works with>> <<works with>>
Developer
Eclipse Eclipse Content REST
Semantic
Editor/ Resource Repository
Tool Management
File System Providers
Codelines/
«represents a»
Branches/
Baselines
etc
Project/
«output» «input»
...
Folder/
Resource
Hierarchy
F( ) Resources Variants
Versions/
Revisions
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10. Content Providers mayContent Provider
Default
Project
be nested
have own semantics
Content File
Provider 1
Folder Content
Provider 2 Folder
Folder Content
File Provider 3 Folder File
File File
File File
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12. Further Discussions via Feature Request in
Eclipse Bugzilla:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=292197
Prototype implementation is uploaded into
above Bug Report.
Futrther details can be found in Eclipse Wiki:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/E4/Resources/Semantic_File_System
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16. IWorkspaceRunnable myRunnable = new IWorkspaceRunnable() {
public void run(IProgressMonitor monitor) throws CoreException {
IFolder folder = …
ISemanticFolder sfolder = (ISemanticFolder)
folder.getAdapter(ISemanticFolder.class);
if ( sfolder != null ) {
sfolder.addFile(fileName, uri, 0, monitor);
}
}
};
workspace.run(myRunnable,workspace.getRoot(),0,null);
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