[udig-devel] Integration wishlist (Was: How integratable is uDig?)

[Matthias Basler]

Hi uDiggers,

my first attempts trying to integrate uDig into another application were not too bad. But I have yet to come to the more critical points.

For now I just have some easy-to-do wishes related to the UI that improve uDig's integratability.

1. My application shows the "Customize perspective" action. In this dialog all the action sets are listed. Unfortunately the uDig action sets do not have translated, short names as the Eclipse actions sets or my own. They are called "net.refractions.udig.helpMenuItems" (not as ID, as label!).
Could you please give them proper, translatable names, e.g. "Help menu actions"? This applies to:
- net.refractions.udig.helpMenuItems
- net.refractions.udig.ui.menus
- net.refractions.udig.style.sld.editor.layerAction
- "MapGraphics" (in net.refractions.udig.tools.edit)
    (Here the action set label is just not externalized.)
- "MapGraphics" (in net.refractions.udig.legend) -not externalized
- "MapGraphics" (in net.refractions.udig.printing.ui) -not externalized
- In net.refractions.udig.project.ui) the action set label should not point to the key "layerMenu.label", since this one has mnemonics:
    "layerMenu.label = &Layers"
However an action set label should NOT have mnemonics, so just "Layers".

2. The action set "net.refractions.udig.ui.menus" has a translated name, but no matching key in the .properties file. It seems to me as if this action set is never used (never shown in the UI), otherwise people would surely have noticed the missing resource key.

3. Navigation menu keys:
Eclipse defines a "Navigate" menu with the key "navigate"
    (= IWorkbenchActionConstants.M_NAVIGATE)
UDig defines a "Navigation" menu with the key "nav"
    (in UDIGMenuBuilder.createNavigationMenu())
Is this distinction done on purpose? It leads to the odd effect that in my integrated application I end up with two Navigation menus.

Could you please consider renaming your menu ID to  WorkbenchActionConstants.M_NAVIGATE as well?
(Hmm... guess this could be problematic for uDig plugin developers that have already extended the menu. They'd have to change their IDs as well.)

That's it for now, I keep you updated when I find more.
Should I open Jira tasks for this?
-- 
Matthias Basler
matthiasbasler at earthflight.org