ERCP 1.1 Draft Plan

Embedded Rich Client Platform Project 1.1 Plan

This document lays out the feature and API set for the next release of Embedded Rich Client Platform Project, to be released , in July 2007, and usually called "eRCP 1.1", for short.

This document is a draft and is subject to change, we welcome all feedback.

To ensure the planning process is transparent and open to the entire Eclipse community, we post plans in an embryonic form and revise them throughout the release cycle.

The first part of the plan deals with the important matters of release deliverables, release milestones, target operating environments, and release-to-release compatibility. These are all things that need to be clear for any release, even if no features were to change.

The remainder of the plan consists of plan items for the subcomponents under the eRCP project,

The current status of each plan item is noted:

• Committed plan item - A committed plan item is one that we have decided to address for the release.
• Proposed plan item - A proposed plan item is one that we are considering addressing for the release. Although we are actively investigating it, we are not yet in a position to commit to it, or to say that we won't be able to address it. After due consideration, a proposal will either be committed or deferred.
• Deferred plan item - A reasonable proposal that will not make it in to this release for some reason is marked as deferred with a brief note as to why it was deferred. Deferred plan items may resurface as committed plan items at a later point.

Release deliverables

The release deliverables have the same form as previous releases, namely:

• Source code release, available as versions tagged "R1_1" from eRCP CVS Repository

• eRCP runtime binary for Windows platform (downloadable).
• eRCP runtime binary for Windows Mobile 2003/5 (downloadable).
• eRCP device and emulator runtime binaries for Nokia Series 80 (downloadable).
• eSWT device and emulator runtime binaries for Nokia Series 80 (downloadable).

Release milestones and release candidates

Release milestones will occur with the Eclipse Platform milestone releases and will be compatible with Eclipse 3.3 builds. The following are the approximate dates for eRCP milestones.

• Wednesday Nov. 15, 2006 - Milestone 1 (1.1 M1) - stable build
• Wednesday Jan. 10, 2007 - Milestone 2 (1.1 M2) - stable build

Target Operating Environments

• Microsoft Windows XP
• Microsoft Windows CE 5.0
• Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003/5
• Nokia Series 80
• Nokia S60

Compatibility with previous Releases

eRCP 1.1 will be compatible with eRCP 1.0

API Contract Compatibility: eRCP 1.1 will be upwards contract-compatible with eRCP 1.0 except in those areas that are noted. Programs that use affected APIs and extension points will need to be ported to eRCP 1.0 APIs. Downward contract compatibility is not supported. There is no guarantee that compliance with eRCP 1.1 APIs would ensure compliance with eRCP 1.0 APIs.

Binary Compatibility: eRCP 1.1 will be upwards binary-compatible with eRCP 1.0 except in those areas announced. Downward plug-in compatibility is not supported. Bundles for eRCP 1.1 will not be usable in eRCP 1.0

Source Compatibility: eRCP 1.1 will be upwards source-compatible with eRCP 1.1 except in the areas noted. This means that source files written to use eRCP 1.0 APIs might successfully compile and run against eRCP 1.1 APIs, although this is not guaranteed. Downward source compatibility is not supported. If source files use new eRCP 1.1 APIs, they will not be usable with an earlier version of eRCP.

Major themes

Improve Quality

Focused effort will be made to reduce bug backlog, improving test coverage, performance and performance testing.

Improve Mobile Usability

The usability of eRCP components should be extended further to better accomodate mobile device needs. Here are the requirements

• As many of the targeted devices require one handed (non-touch)operation eRCP should ensure that its UI components are fully compatible with such cases.
• Better handling of the different screen sizes

Enable better integration with mobile platforms

Mobile platforms provide many features like OSGi runtimes and multimedia APIs. It is our aim to create enablers so that eRCP applications can utilize them.

Components

eSWT

Committed items

None at this time

Proposed items

• ScrollableComposite: Scrollable composite is a good candidate for further enhancing the eSWT component offering. With the addition of the ScrolledComposite eSWT can also provide auto-scrolling (see bug152940) which will improve the handling of different screen sizes.

• Support for mobile JSR's: Provide enablers for UI related mobile JSRs in eSWT. Candidate APIs are MMAPI(jsr-135), M2G(jsr-226), M3G(jsr-184) and AMMS (jsr-234).

• Definion of eSWT usage in MIDP Runtime: MIDP runtime is currently defacto Java runtime in mobile devices. It would benefit users (both clients of eSWT and implementors of eSWT on devices) that the project would define common way of using and integrating eSWT in MIDP runtime. This means eSWT usage from MIDlets would be defined. Since eSWT is only dependent of CLDC APIs it is usable in much more larger set of devices comparared to full eRCP, which requires CDC.

• SystemTray: Would allow to integrate to devices' today/home/active idle/standby screens; request in bug 181151.

• System color scheme or theme/skin change events: Bring in SWT.Settings events to eSWT; request in bug 181151.

Defered items

None at this time

Core Runtime

Committed items

None at this time

Proposed items

• Support for different OSGi environments Mobile platforms may provide their own OSGi implementations in order to better utilize these platforms eRCP should be able to run on top any OSGi runtime.

Defered items

None at this time

eWorkbech

Committed items

None at this time

Proposed items

None at this time

Defered items

None at this time

eUpdate

Committed items

None at this time

Proposed items

None at this time

Defered items

None at this time