[kepler-dev] Use of kepler-configs.jar

[Kevin Ruland]

Dan,

I suggest having all these things in the same location.  Instead of 
adding 4 directories to the classpath add just one.  There can still be 
subdirectories underneath it.

Kevin

Dan Higgins wrote:
> Hi All,
>
>     If you look into the details of how Kepler is currently launched (at 
> least from ANT) you will find that a jar file called 
> 'kepler-configs.jar' is created and configuration information is read 
> from the jar file. Various classpath relative files are read from this 
> jar. Even the ANT target 'run-dev' builds this jar (although it avoids 
> jarring all the sources).
>
>      There are some some disadvantages to jarring all the configuration 
> files. One of these is that it makes it more difficult for a user to 
> edit configuration settings (like the $Kepler/lib/configs.xml file or 
> the configs/ptolemy/configs/kepler/\uiSettings.properties file. A 
> non-java programmer would have a difficult time unjarring the config 
> jar, editing the file, and then rejarring it. Similarly, all the 
> examples linked to the Intro.html file are in the jar. Saving changed 
> versions of these workflow demos has confused several new users because 
> Kepler cannot save back to the jar file it read to display the demos. 
> And we have been including non-jarred versions of the demos in the 
> workflows directory as well as non-jarred versions of the config files.
>
>     So I would like to propose that we not use the kepler-configs.jar 
> file and just add some additonal entries to the classpath. If you include
>
> ./:./configs:./lib:./lib/images
>
> to the start of the classpath, the kepler-configs.jar can be eliminated 
> without moving or deleting any files/directories in $Kepler. The only 
> other thing that needs to changed is the paths in the 'Intro.html' file 
> that links to example workflows. (Apparently, all relative paths are 
> relative to the location of the html file with the link.) Currently, the 
> links all start with "workflows/..." since the workflow directory is 
> copied to a location relative to the configs/kepler/ directory. If we 
> just change 'workflows' to '../../../../workflows' in the html files, we 
> can have a relative link to any examples (and the workflows are opened 
> as files (rather than as jar urls.)
>
>     Any thoughts on these proposed changes? [Note that the main value of 
> such change is for Kepler distributions where users will presumably not 
> be re-compiling Kepler.]
>
> Dan
>
>