I plan to create a sandbox plugin for spring at mojo.codehaus.org. It will use a (simplified) spring context files description to generate a .springbeans configuration file with base options that may cover most cases. When some spring IDE fine tweaks are requied, it would be simplier to commit the .springBEan on SCM.

The idea is to configure something like :

<plugin>
<artifactId>springide-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<springContext>
<include>${basedir}/src/main/resources/META-INF/spring/*.xml<include>
<springContext>
</configuration>
</plugin>

This will generate a .springBean config file with a single config set (artifactId as name) including all the declared spring context files.

In many cases, I think this will cover most user requirements

But the plugin must support search in classpath too. Sometimes Spring context files are in jar files.

Cheers

http://code.google.com/p/q4e/

It would avoid a lot of user configuration if SpringIDE could contribute to Q4E import extension points and add the necessary files/natures/... for Spring projects

https://q4e.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/maven/wtp/core

The interesting files are
https://q4e.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/maven/wtp/core/src/org/devzuz/q/maven/wtp/core/postprocessor/WtpEnablerPostprocessor.java
https://q4e.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/maven/jdt/core/src/main/java/org/devzuz/q/maven/jdt/core/classpath/container/IMavenClasspathAttributeProvider.java
https://q4e.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/plugins/maven/jdt/ui/src/main/java/org/devzuz/q/maven/jdt/ui/projectimport/IImportProjectPostprocessor.java

If you like the idea I can start an example for Spring if I get help on what SpringIDE libs need to be used and what exactly needs to be done to enable it

http://mojo.codehaus.org/springide-maven-plugin/

It scans the project (source, resources and target/generated-*) using includes/excludes patterns for spring configuration files and create .springBeans based on it.

I could also scan the project dependencies but I can't find how this would apply to the .springBeans file. Using SpringIDE 2.0.5, I have no option in my project to include files from other eclipse projects or from classpaht jars (did I miss something ?).

About support from SpringIDE for maven / eclipse integration, please also consider m2Eclispe that also has a plugable "Configurator" API.

m2Eclipse and q4e are concurrent projects for maven / eclipse integration, with no plan to merge efforts

The project configuration extension points we created in m2eclipse allows to use tools own API for configuring projects and other settings. It still allow to call Maven plugins (and there is a generic implementation for that), but it is probably should be used as a last resort.

Please see more details on the wiki at http://docs.codehaus.org/display/M2ECLIPSE/Extensible+project+configuration+framework

Anyways, this kind of integration is probably should be owned by the tool vendors, such as SpringIDE and since m2eclipse is being provisioned at eclipse.org I wonder if SpringIDE is interested in taking ownership for implementing project configurator for m2eclipse?

PS: Nicolas, you should not be speaking on behalf of m2eclipse that there is no plans to merge efforts

I don't see myself implementing and maintaining support for two Eclipse projects (assuming that both projects pass the creation review) that both deal with Maven integration but have a totally different and incompatible approach for their extension points. IMHO it would be best for the community to have one great Maven plugin that can then gather as many extension providers instead of having two of them.

I still need to look into how much effort it would take to implement the extension points but just the fact that there are two projects at Eclipse confuse me and I honestly don't think that this is healthy and good for adoption.

Just my 2cents.

Christian