Framework to access a remote system from an integrated development environment

• US 20040003371A1
• Filed: 10/31/2002
• Published: 01/01/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 06/26/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Yantzi, Donald J., Simpson, Eric V., Coulthard, Phil
• Granted Patent: US 7,458,062 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/101
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/24 Object-oriented

Abstract

For use in an integrated development environment, such as Eclipse, a common connection registry of connections to remote systems is presented. The connection registry contains objects and subsystem objects. The connection objects have attribute information for the remote system whereas the subsystem objects contain information specific to a particular tool and connection. The framework further presents a common user interface by which tools can be registered within a connection, or by which a new connection can be created. The common user interface presents application program interfaces by which connection objects and subsystem objects can be created, retrieved, maintained, updated, modified, stored in the registry, and/or deleted, etc. The framework is capable of maintaining connections and tools within an integrated development environment independent of the type and/or operating system of the remote systems, the programming language of the tools, etc.

Claims

1. A framework for use with an integrated development environment, the framework comprising:

(a) a registry of at least one connection to at least one remote system, the at least one connection used by a plurality of tools in the integrated development environment to access the at least one remote system; and

(b) a common user interface shared by the plurality of tools, the common user interface capable of displaying the at least one connection and the plurality of tools and a context menu associated with each connection in the registry.

2. The framework of claim 1, wherein the framework further comprises a plurality of application program interfaces used by the common user interface by which at least one of the connections and specific attribute information for each of the plurality of tools in the connection registry can be created, retrieved, modified, and/or restored to the connection registry.

3. The framework of claim 2, wherein at least one of the plurality of application program interfaces exposes extension points of the tools.

4. The framework of claim 1, wherein the connection registry of the framework further comprises:

(a) at least one connection object which comprises general attributes common to at least one remote system; and

(b) a subsystem object for at least one of the plurality of tools that can access the at least one remote system, the subsystem object containing specific attribute information.

5. The framework of claim 4, wherein the general attributes further comprise a connection name, a remote system identifier, and a remote system type.

6. The framework of claim 5, wherein the general attributes may further comprise a default user ID.

7. The framework of claim 6, wherein the subsystem object for the at least one tool can override the default user ID with a user ID attribute.

8. The framework of claim 4, wherein the subsystem object comprises the scope of the at least one tool pertaining to the subsystem object.

9. The framework of claim 5, further comprising an expandable tree hierarchy within the common user interface displaying the at least one connection object, a list of the tools that can access the at least one remote system using the at least one displayed connection object, and the subsystem objects, if any, containing specific attribute information.

10. The framework of claim 9, wherein the common user interface further comprises application program interfaces by which to manipulate, duplicate, delete, change, and/or reorder or otherwise modify at least one connection object associated with at least one remote system.

11. A method by which to register at least one tool that accesses at least one remote system, the method within an integrated development environment and comprising the steps of:

(a) creating a connection object associated with the at least one remote system;

(b) populating the connection object with general attributes of a connection from the integrated development environment to the remote system;

(c) determining if the at least one tool has an associated subsystem factory having specific attribute information pertaining to the tool;

(d) determining if the subsystem factory is supported by the connection object;

(e) if so, creating a subsystem object containing the specific attribute information unique to the connection and the tool; and

(f) saving the subsystem object and the connection object in a connection registry.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the general attributes of the connection comprises:

(a) a connection name;

(b) a remote system identifier; and

(c) a type of remote system.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the general attributes of the connection further comprises:

(a) a default user ID; and

(b) a descriptive text.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein the step of registering further comprises the steps of:

(a) retrieving a plurality of subsystem objects for a particular connection object;

(b) calling a plurality of application program interfaces to retrieve a name and icon for each of the retrieved subsystem objects;

(c) displaying the subsystem name and icons for each of the retrieved subsystem objects in a common user interface.

15. An integrated development environment, comprising:

(a) a common registry of a plurality of connections from the integrated development environment to a plurality of remote systems; and

(b) a plurality of tools to access remote systems using at least one of the plurality of connections.

16. The integrated development environment of claim 15, wherein the common registry further comprises a plurality of connection objects, each connection object having at least the name, address, and type of remote system with which the connection object is associated.

17. The integrated development environment of claim 16, wherein the common registry further comprises a plurality of subsystem objects, each of the plurality of subsystem objects being unique to each of the plurality of tools registered in the common registry.

18. The integrated development environment of claim 15, further comprising a common remote systems explorer to provide a plurality of methods and application program interfaces by which to create, change, and/or delete any of the plurality of connections within the common registry.

19. A computer processing device, comprising:

(a) a processor;

(b) a memory functionally connected to the processor;

(c) a network interface by which the processor can access one or more remote systems across a connected or wireless network;

(d) an integrated development environment executing on the processor;

(e) a framework within the integrated development environment by which tools of the integrated development environment may access one or more remote systems, the framework comprising;

(i) a connection registry having at least one connection object containing attributes of at least one remote system accessible by a tool;

(ii) a common user interface having a plurality of methods by which to create and/or act upon the at least one connection object;

the framework being independent of the type of the at least one remote system and independent of a language of the tool and integrated development environment.

20. A framework for an integrated development environment within a computer software development program, the framework comprising:

(a) means to create a plurality of connections to all remote systems accessible by a plurality of tools used by the integrated development environment;

(b) means to establish a common registry of all connections irrespective of a type of remote system or of a language of a tool or of a file structure of data accessible by a tool;

(c) means to store any preexisting connections in the common registry;

(d) means to create a subsystem having information unique to at least one of the plurality of tools, the unique information pertaining to at least one of the remote systems;

(e) means to create a common view of all the connections and all the tools that can access the remote systems using the connections, and all the unique information in a hierarchical tree interface;

(f) means to retrieve any of the connections and/or unique information; and

/or

(g) means to modify any of the connections and/or unique information; and

/or

(h) means to restore any of the connections and/or unique information; and

/or

(i) means to store the preexisting, created, and modified connections and/or unique information in the common registry and the common view.

21. An article of manufacture, comprising a data storage medium tangibly embodying a program of machine readable instructions executable by an electronic processing apparatus to perform method steps for operating an electronic processing apparatus, said method steps comprising the steps of:

(a) opening an integrated development environment;

(b) reading any preexisting connections to remote systems, the preexisting connections stored within the integrated development environment;

(c) providing a wizard by which new connections to remote systems can be created; and

(d) providing at least one application programming interface that can act upon a new connection, or a preexisting connection, or specific information relating to a particular tool to access a specific remote system.

22. The article of manufacture of claim 21, wherein the method steps may further comprise providing a registry of all connections and all specific information.

23. The article of manufacture of claim 22, further comprising providing a hierarchical tree view of all connections and all specific information in the registry.

24. A method to use an integrated development environment having a plurality of tools that can access remote systems, the method comprising the steps of:

(a) querying a registry of connection objects;

(b) presenting the registry of connection objects; and

(c) retrieving a selected connection object.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

(a) querying a set of subsystem objects of the selected connection objects; and

(b) retrieving a selected subsystem object.

26. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

(a) querying for any remote system adapters of the selected connection objects; and

(b) retrieving a remote system adapter.

27. A graphical user interface in an integrated development environment, comprising:

(a) a list of a plurality of connections, each of the plurality of connections to an individual remote system;

(b) a list of a plurality of tools under each of the plurality of connections, each of the tools capable of connecting to the individual remote system; and

(c) an icon associated with each of the plurality of tools.

28. A connection registry for use in an integrated development environment, the connection registry comprising:

(a) at least one of connection object;

(b) at least one subsystem object, if any exist, (c) at least one remote system adapter, if any exist

whereby a tool in the integrated development environment can access a remote system using the at least one connection object, regardless of the type of remote system and regardless of the language of the tool.