Protege4DevDocs
Protege 4 Developer Documentation
This page is still somewhat under construction...
Working with Protege 4 source code
To Do List:
- Need to add some explanatory text here about how to choose between compiling using a separate project for each bundle vs. using one big project.
- Maybe some high-level description here would be helpful about how source code is organized since it's different than 3.3.1, i.e., we're using OSGi now?
Before loading the Protege 4 source code into eclipse, the developer needs to decide whether he wants to see all the protege sources in one big project or to see several projects for each of the different Protege 4 plugins. We have deveoped the following list of pros and cons of working with one big project vs. several smaller projects but here is a short list of criteria that may often lead to an answer:
- Eclipse developers will generally favor having several smaller projects. Eclipse provides nice support for defining extensions and extension points and will detect problems in both the manifest and the plugin.xml.
- Plugin developers will probably generally do better with several smaller projects. They do not need to make changes to the core protege plugins and can use an appropriate Protege 4 release to create their runnable.
- Non-eclipse developers who are working with all the Protege sources (e.g. the Protege development team or developers who need tight coordination with Protege developments) will probably prefer to work with one single large project.
Once this decision has been made a developer can choose between one of the following approaches to work with the source code.
- Compile and run the Protege-OWL editor in Eclipse - this page gives directions for compiling Protege 4.0 sources in Eclipse where each bundle is created as a separate Eclipse project.
- Compile and run the Protege-OWL editor in Eclipse - this page gives directions for compiling Protege 4.0 sources in Eclipse where all bundles are encapsulated in one Eclipse project.
