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Project Management Infrastructure/Project Metadata
Contents
What is project meta-data?
- Relatively static structural information such as the names of the project's mailing lists and newsgroups, the bugzilla products and CVS repository, etc.
- Historical information such as previous release downloads, release review slides and IP logs, etc.
- Status and future looking information such as the project and milestone plans, the features scheduled for the current release, release dates, etc.
Who maintains it?
Eclipse committers and project leads are responsible for maintaining their project's meta-data. This information is an important part of being an Eclipse project.
How do I maintain my meta-data?
Use the portal. Look in Eclipse Projects > [view] > [maintain] Project meta-data.
What Meta-Data Does What
Missing information on various eclipse.org website pages are caused either (a) by the project not providing the meta-data, or (b) by the project not having an instance of that resource.
/projects/ page
What | Data Storage w/ Link to How to Update |
---|---|
Project Name | projectname in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Info Page | Standard format page for all projects |
Phase | Foundation internal database. Email emo@ |
Home Page | projecturl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Newsgroup | newsgroup.name in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Mailing List | mailinglist.name in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Wiki | wikiurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
IP Log | iplogurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Standard project information page
E.g., Project Dash's standard information page
For those more visual people, there's also an annotated screenshot of a standard information page.
Name | Foundation internal database. Email emo@ |
Download | downloadsurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Description | descriptionurl in the project meta data. Use the portal.
Should be an html paragraph or two (recommended). If the url points to an eclipse.org website page, we attempt to extract the midcolumn contents as the paragraph. |
Logo | logourl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Commits Activity | sourcerepository in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Newsgroups | newsgroup.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Mailing Lists | mailinglist.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Source Repository | sourcerepository.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Committers | Foundation internal database. Email emo@.
Activity is taken from the commits explorer driven by sourcerepository in the project meta data. Use the portal. Active is any commit activity in the last three months, participating is any in the last nine months. Company logos are shows for member companies of active committers. |
Leaders | Foundation internal database. Email emo@ |
Update site | updatesiteurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Releases | release.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. Valid release status includes: scheduled, completed, tentative. |
Bugs | bugzilla in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Website | Foundation internal database. Email emo@ |
Wiki | wikiurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Documentation | documentationurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Articles | articleurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Project Plan | projectplanurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Mentors | Set by Architecture Council members using the portal. |
Project Plan Page
Project Plan | projectplanurl in the project meta data. Use the portal. Also see the documentation. |
Mailing Lists Page
The eclipse.org list of mailing lists.
Mailing List | mailinglist.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Topics | Foundation internal database. Email emo@ |
Newsgroups Page
The eclipse.org list of newsgroups.
Newsgroup | newsgroup.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. |
Topics | Foundation internal database. Email emo@ |
Timeline
The eclipse.org timeline page.
Releases | release.* in the project meta data. Use the portal. Valid release status includes: scheduled, completed, tentative. |
Categories
Name | Field | Description |
---|---|---|
Description | paragraphurl | This is a single URL for an HTML file in your project's web directory that contains a short (i.e. one or two paragraph) description of your project in the paragraphurl field. Keep the content of your file as simple as possible (i.e. avoid left- or right-aligned images, div tags, etc.) You may specify the URL as absolute (e.g. http://www.eclipse.org/woolsey/description.html) or relative to the web root (e.g. /woolsey/description.html). Note that however you choose to specify this value, the resulting URL must be relative to http://www.eclipse.org/. |
Homepage | projecturl | This is a single URL that points to your project's main page. The link can be to any eclipse.org property. Links can be absolute (e.g. http://www.eclipse.org/woolsey, http://eclipse.org/woolsey, or http://wiki.eclipse.org/Woolsey) or relative (e.g. /woolsey). Relative links are assumed to be relative to http://www.eclipse.org. |
Newsgroups | newsgroup | You can specify multiple newsgroups. This information is used to inform your community of the newsgroups and forums available for your project (the same information is used to render links to both newsgroups and forums). For each newsgroup/forum, you specify the name, optional description, and type. The name is as it appears on the news server (e.g. eclipse.woolsey). A short description will help visitors decide which newsgroup or forum to visit and so it is highly recommended that you provide a value here. Generally a project will have a single "main" newsgroup/forum. This information is used when rendering newsgroups (in cases where there is only room to list one, the main newsgroup/forum is listed). |
Mailing Lists | mailinglist | You can specify multiple mailing lists. This information is used to inform your community of the mailing lists available for your project. For each mailing list, you specify the name, optional description, and type. The name is specified without the domain (e.g. woolsey-dev). A short description will help visitors decide which mailing list to use and so it is highly recommended that you provide a value here. Generally a project will have a single "main" mailing list. This information is used when rendering mailing lists (in cases where there is only room to list one, the main mailing list is listed). |
Wiki | wikiurl | This is a link to the project's landing page in the wiki. You may specify the URL as absolute (e.g. http://wiki.eclipse.org/Woolsey) or relative to the wiki root (e.g. /Woolsey). Note that however you choose to specify this value, the resulting URL must be relative to http://wiki.eclipse.org/. |
Docs | documentationurl | This is a single URL that points to the project's documentation. Typically this is a link into http://help.eclipse.org</wiki> (e.g. <nowiki>http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.egit.doc/help/EGit/User_Guide/User-Guide.html, but the link can be to any eclipse.org property. Relative links are assumed to be relative to http://www.eclipse.org. |
Download | downloadsurl | This is a single URL that points to the project's downloads. The link can be to any eclipse.org property. Relative links are assumed to be relative to http://www.eclipse.org. |
Inheritence
Currently sub-projects/components can inherit from their parent project by setting the "Inherit" key in the meta-data editor. This special key will cause web pages and other places where the meta-data is used, to override all values other than the projectname key. This is typically used for very small projects or components which do not need to maintain much information.
When is project status information considered out-of-date?
Different kinds of information go out of date at different rates and times, but here's an easy checklist:
- All structural status information is out-of-date if it does not match the infrastructure. For example, if the project has added a new project-announce@ mailing list, but the project status files do not list that mailing list, then they are out of date.
- Status summaries must be updated at least once a quarter. It's better to update them once a month.
- Historical information (downloads, release information, and so on) and status summaries need updating with each release (obviously).
Why is project status information important?
Eclipse projects belong to a larger community - Eclipse - which is comprised of not only the committers and developers on the project, but also the developers on other projects, plug-in developers outside the Eclipse projects, and the entire ecosystem surrounding Eclipse. In order to keep all these people up-to-date on the direction and status of the Eclipse projects, each project needs to provide timely and accurate descriptive and status information. (See "2.4 Eclipse Ecosystem" in the Eclipse Development Process.)
The project status information drives a number of the eclipse.org web pages including the categories on the home page, the dashboard, the timeline, lists of projects, lists of mailing lists and newsgroups, status pages, and more.
Using the Infrastructure
RAll projects are required to use the standard left menu on the project home page. See the detailed, but easy, instructions for how to make that left menu appear.