EPP/Obsolete/Wizard/Outgoing links

The outgoing links are used to present the option to continue the configuration of features with third-party distribution providers.

Configuration

These links appear on the last page of the wizard under the download links. They are configured with simple properties file in a folder configured in the EPP/Obsolete/Wizard/Configuration.

For each provider there should be an icon in the folder mentioned above, that is referenced in the properties file. The icon size should be standardized across all service providers. 64x64 pixels would seem like a good fit, but this topic is still open for discussion.

The properties files have the following form

label=External Services Provider
description=Even more features and plugins!
icon=external.png
url=http://example.com/path/to/handler

The label entry denotes the title, the description is a small text that appears with the title, the icon is the image file mentioned above. The url is the destination address for the link. This allows potential users to continue their installation configuration with a distribution provider based on their current selection.

Hand-off to external service providers

Clicking the external servvice provider link, triggers a user agent redirect to the URL configured above, transmitting the following parameters via the HTTP POST method:

• os: detected or selected Platform, one of "linux", "macosx", "win32"
• eclipse.p2.roots: root IU ids, as selected by the user (plus additional base IUs e.g. org.eclipse.platform.ide) as comma separated list
• eclipse.p2.metadata: meta data repository URLs used by the installer, as comma separated list
• eclipse.p2.artifacts: artifact repository URLS used by the installer, as comma separated list

Requirements/effort for external service providers

The technical integration requirements for service providers for the EPP Wizard itself are basically the properties file mentioned in #Configuration, plus an icon to display on the Wizard page.

The implementation efforts for the service provider may vary a lot depending on the types of services provided. Basically, the page referenced by the URL should implement the service functionality, allowing the user to continue their task based on the choices made in the EPP Wizard. Thus the configured URL handler should in most cases process the transmitted POST parameters to set up a starting point for further interaction with the user.