Skip to main content

Notice: this Wiki will be going read only early in 2024 and edits will no longer be possible. Please see: https://gitlab.eclipse.org/eclipsefdn/helpdesk/-/wikis/Wiki-shutdown-plan for the plan.

Jump to: navigation, search

Mylyn/User Guide

< Mylyn
Revision as of 13:55, 18 February 2008 by Eu.md.pp.ru (Talk | contribs) (Generic Web Repository Connector)


Also see: Tips & Tricks

Introduction

For tutorials and articles on using Mylyn refer to the Publications page. The role of this document is to provide up-to-date documentation on a listing of the key Mylyn features and is not intended as a tutorial, and to allow users to contribute additional documentation.

Mylyn is a task-focused UI for Eclipse that makes working with very large workspaces as easy as working with small ones. Mylyn extends Eclipse with mechanisms for keeping track of the tasks that you work on. A task is defined as any unit of work that you want to recall or share with others, such as a bug reported by a user or a note to yourself about improving a feature. You can store tasks locally in your workspace, or they can come from one or more task repositories. To connect to a task repository, you must have a connector that supports that repository. (A task repository is a bug/ticket/issue tracker such as Bugzilla, Trac, or JIRA).

Once your tasks are integrated, Mylyn monitors your work activity on those tasks to identify information relevant to the task-at-hand. Mylyn monitors Eclipse and captures your interaction in a task context. System artifacts such as files, types, methods, and fields get assigned a degree-of-interest based on how recently and frequently you interact with them. This results in uninteresting elements being filtered from view within Eclipse, allowing you to focus on on what is important. From this, Mylyn creates a task context, which is the set of all artifacts related to your task. These can include methods you have edited, APIs you have referred to, and documents you have browsed. Mylyn uses this task context to focus the Eclipse UI on interesting information, hide what's uninteresting, and automatically find what's related. Having the information you need to get your work done at your fingertips improves your productivity by reducing the time you spend searching, scrolling, and navigating. By making task context explicit, Mylyn also facilitates multitasking, planning, reusing past efforts, and sharing expertise.

Other Resources

Getting Started

Instructional blog posts (feel free to add your own)

Installation

Also see the Installation FAQ

To install Mylyn, you need to

After you have installed Mylyn, there are a few more configuration steps that you might wish to do:

Releases

The best and most stable release to use is always the latest. This goes for milestone releases (e.g. 2.0M1) which will often have bug fixes and other improvements over final release versions (e.g. 1.0.1). The "milestone" tag only refers to the fact that the API for that release is still stabilizing. Our policy is not to destabilize, so any Mylyn build that you install should be stable, including development builds. The UI of development builds can fluctuate.

Schedule

  • Dev builds
    • Eclipse 3.3: available every Friday, often more frequently
    • Eclipse 3.2: available 2 and 4 weeks after Milestone release date, or on request
  • Eclipse milestone releases
    • Day of the milestone release the dev build supports the latest milestone
    • 1 week after the milestone release a new Mylyn release is available

Dev Builds

Development builds are released weekly, usually on Friday, and should be used by all Mylyn contributors not using Mylyn straight from CVS.

  • Eclipse 3.3: latest Eclipse milestone release is fully supported.
  • Eclipse 3.2: any 3.2.x version

Task List and Context Store Compatibility

The Task List and Context Store are compatible across all currently-supported Eclipse versions. This means that you can use the same .mylyn data in both Eclipse 3.2 and 3.3. For Mylyn versions that have reached their end-of-life we specify the update path so that the contents of the .mylyn folder are updated. This is listed in the "Update notes" on top of the New & Noteworthy.

Task context compatibility

Task contexts can be shared with any previous released version of Mylyn. Note that if elements have been renamed they may not appear as interesting when the context is activated.

Download

For supported platforms and known limitations please see the Mylyn download page.

The recommended way to install Mylyn is from inside Eclipse:

  1. Select Help->Software Updates->Find and Install.
  2. Select Search for new features to install and select Next.
  3. Select New Remote Site.
  4. Enter "Mylyn" for the name and insert the download site given on the Mylyn downloads page. The URL should end up as something similar to http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/eX.Y. Select OK.
    1. Note: I could not find anywhere on the download page where a URL for installing was mentioned. I had to guess, and successfully used http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/e3.2. for Eclipse 3.2.
  5. Make sure there is a check in the Mylyn box, and select Finish.
  6. Put a check in the box next to Mylyn. If you don't mind downloading some stuff you don't need, go ahead and select Next. Otherwise, expand the Mylyn line (by clicking on the disclosure triangle) and select what you want. We recommend downloading the Task List, the Focused UI, and connectors appropriate to the bug repository that you use -- Bugzilla, Trac, or Jira. (Note that to download Jira, you need both the core and the connector.) You can download Mylyn without a bug repository, but it won't be as interesting an experience. If you download the Focused UI you will want to also choose the Bridge appropraite to the content you work with. Most developers will want to include all bridges provided.
  7. Read the license agreements, accept or decline as appropriate, and either select Next (if you accept) or Cancel (if you do not accept).
  8. You will see a list of features and where to install them. If the default installation directory is fine, select Finish.

Optional Extras There are optional Mylyn extras available at a separate update site: download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/extras. This update site includes projects still in incubation. As of writing this update site includes the JIRA Connector, the Generic Issue Tracker Connector, and UI Usage Reporting facility.

Errors you might get during the download process:

  • Network connection problems encountered during search means that Eclipse couldn't find the location you entered. This might be because you copied something incorrectly (watch for extra characters -- even extra spaces can cause errors), or because the site went down. You might be able to see if the site is down by copying the URL into your Web browser.
  • Update manager failure means that Eclipse could not access the update site, or that it got confused about the configuration state of your Eclipse. First try updating again to see if the update site is accessible.
  • If you are trying to update the JIRA connector you can also try de-selecting that feature in case the Tigris.org update site is not accessible. Using use Search for new features.. when installing can help to avoid this problem. If that does not work see the feature configuration troubleshooting below.
  • You will probably get a warning that the feature is unsigned. If you trust that hackers have not befouled the Mylyn plug-in, select Install All.
  • You will get a dialog box asking if you would like to restart Eclipse. We recommend that you select Yes.

Platform requirements

Mylyn requires the Java 5 virtual machine. To check the version of the Java virtual machine that Eclipse was launched with to to Help -> About Eclipse SDK -> Configuration Details and verify that the java.vm.version is 1.5.

Mac users should refer to the last comment on bug 1163477 for instructions on how to change the 1.4 default.

  • If you do not have Java 5, you can download it from Sun's web site.
  • If you have more than one VM, you need to specify that Eclipse should use the JDK1.5 VM.

We do not recommend using JDK 1.6 on Eclipse 3.1. (It works fine with Eclipse 3.2 or 3.3.) To use JDK 1.6 on Eclipse 3.1, you must add the following line to your config.ini file:

   org.osgi.framework.executionenvironment=OSGi/Minimum-1.0,OSGi/Minimum-1.1,JRE-1.1,J2SE-1.2,
   J2SE-1.3,J2SE-1.4,J2SE-1.5,JavaSE-1.6

Linux and JVM issues

For those experiencing unstable performance with Linux using the Sun JVM, download the IBM JVM, which will require you to register with IBM prior to download.


In Unix, set the environment variable JAVA_HOME to the root of the JDK1.5 installation and/or set the PATH variable to put the JDK1.5 executable directory before any other VM executable directories. For example, under bash in Unix:

export JAVA_HOME="(location of JDK1.5 root)"
export PATH=$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH

Installing on Linux

Browser Issues

Mylyn uses the Standard Widget Toolkit Browser, and users have experienced problems with the SWT Browser on Linux. This is not a Mylyn specific problem and also occurrs if you try to use Eclipse's Browser view. There are two options:

  • Follow the instructions below to get the browser properly configured
  • Disable the Browser tab showing up on tasks via Preferences -> Mylyn -> Task List

When the Browser is not properly configured exceptions such such as "Could not create Browser page: No more handles (java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: ...)" will appear when attempting to open tasks. See the SWT Browser guide for which browsers will work.

Seamonkey is reported to work well. Just install and then point MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME to /usr/lib/seamonkey. (read below for example of setting this variable)

To test to see if your browser is properly configured, select Window -> Show View -> Other -> General -> Internal Web Browser, then try to bring up a web page.


  • A quick work-around is to disable the internal browser pages in Mylyn editors. To do this: Window -> Preferences -> Mylyn -> Tasks -> Disable Internal Browser.
  • Before testing the browser support in Mylyn, you must first ensure that the Eclipse internal browser is correctly configured. To test to see if your browser is properly configured, select Window -> Show View -> Other -> General -> Internal Web Browser, then try to bring up a web page.
  • Notice: You must use the GTK2 version of Mozilla for internal browser integration.
  • Notice: The internal browser does not correctly support HTTPS. See bug 80033.


Mylyn Task Management features makes use of Eclipse's internal browser, which may require additional install steps listed below. You also have the option of disabling Mylyn's use of the internal browser via Preferences -> Mylyn -> Tasks.

The following steps have been verified on Fedora Core 5, and OpenSuSE 10.1.

  1. Run Mozilla (not Firefox) to confirm that it works.
  2. Confirm the location of your Mozilla install (ex: /usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.12)
  3. Set necessary environment variables in <home_directory>/.bashrc, adding the following 3 lines

    MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/mozilla-1.7.12
    LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME
    export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH

For Debian Etch and newer use the following MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME:

    MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/iceape

4. Log out and log in again (or type "source .bashrc" at the prompt)
5. Start Eclipse and test the internal web browser

If you are getting exceptions indicating missing libraries, check that the paths are accurate and that you have the libraries required. For example, on our test box a library was still missing after these steps. The libstdc++.so.5 was being reported as missing. To solve this problem, find an rpm online that will install the missing legacy library. In our case we found necessary rpm (compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-47.fc4.i386.rpm) on rpmfind.net using their search facility. See also: Standard Widget Toolkit FAQ

Memory consumption problem with internal browser on Linux-GTK

If you are experiencing abnormal memory consumption upon launching the internal browser (or opening repository tasks), try shutting down eclipse, renaming/moving your ~/.mozilla/eclipse folder and relaunching eclipse. (see bug#172782)

UI Issues

There a couple of bugs related to UI features not working in specific Linux distributions:

Debian 3.1 (sarge) with KDE and standard X11 installation (XFree86) works fine for all three issues.

Debian testing (etch) with KDE and new X11 installation (X.Org) has issues with the color display (bug 176716 and 135928), but the Task Activate button works.

Kubuntu Dapper 6.06 with KDE and X.Org triggers all above issues. An upgrade to Edgy enables Task Color display and the date picker selection. To get the Task Activation button working you have to use Edgy and Eclipse 3.3M5eh (or newer).

Installing on MacOS

If you see errors like the following it may be due to Xerces missing from the Mac JDK so you may need to add it to your default classpath. Please refer to and comment on bug 144287 if you see this problem.

   Could not create Bugzilla editor input
   java.io.IOException: SAX2 driver class org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser not found

To ensure that you are using the 1.5 VM refer to the last comment on bug 1163477 for instructions on how to change the 1.4 default.

Rich Task List Install

Mylyn's Task Management features can be used purely as a rich client to supported bug/task/issue trackers, and do not require the programming facilities of the full Eclipse SDK.

For example, to use Mylyn as a rich client for Bugzilla:

Starting Mylyn for the first time

Once everything has been installed, upon restarting, you will see a dialog box titled Mylyn Recommended Preferences. It's probably best to accept the defaults unless you are already familiar with Mylyn.

Mylyn introduces a number of views to the Eclipse workbench that can be found via Window->Show View->Other, under the Mylyn category.

Configuration

After you have installed Mylyn, there are a number of things that you can configure to make your experience even richer.

Eclipse settings

Recommendations for workspace configuration when using Mylyn:

  • Package Explorer
    • Use flat layout in the Package Explorer (local pull down -> Layout -> Flat).
    • Leave the General -> Appearance -> Label Decorations -> Java Type Indicator off. The type is visible under the Java file when Mylyn is applied making such additional information redundant.
  • Editors
    • Turn comment folding on to reduce clutter when using auto folding (Preferences -> Java -> Editor -> Folding).
  • Views
    • Outline: can keep closed for Java development, since the Package Explorer and folded signatures should provide enough context, and the in-place Outline Ctrl+O can be used when needed.
  • Team
    • Set Synchronize view to Change Sets mode (on 3.2: third toolbar button: select Change Sets; on 3.1: toggle toolbar button: Show Change Sets)
    • Use graphical CVS decorators only (Preferences -> Team -> CVS -> Label Decorations -> Text Decorations -> clear all but Project; Icon Decorations -> enable all). This helps reduce visual clutter.


Query setup

While there are many ways to set up queries (e.g. by component, by milestone) we recommend the following as a starting point. For each repository, create:

  1. One query for all tasks assigned to you. This should include all closed/resolved tasks in order to prevent resolved tasks from dropping into the "Archive" container. There is no performance problem with having thousands of resolved tasks in your Task List.
  2. All tasks assigned to each person that you work with closely. This can include peers or people you manage and makes it easier to collaborate.
  3. All tasks that you are CC'd on. To this you can additionally add tasks that you have commented on and created/reported. This will prevent you from needing to rely on email notifications, since it captures all tasks of interest. For example, with this this configruation you can turn off Bugzilla email notifications or have them automatically categorized/filed out of yor email inbox.

Depending on how you set up (1) and (2), you may want to limit (3) to certain components in order to avoid tasks showing up in multiple containers.

Workspace setup

The following is an example of how to set up your Eclipse to work with a single workspace in a way where you can use Mylyn to focus you on your task while using Working Sets to maintain only a single workspace while keeping project/product boundaries clear.

  • Create a Working Set for each project/product that you have checked out.
    • NOTE: we recommend not overlapping your working sets, e.g. having ProjectFoo in both WorkingSetA and WorkingSetB. Doing so will cause the project to show twice when the Focus filter is on.
  • Set the Package Explorer to show Working Sets as the top-level elements.
  • Set the Problems view to filter out warnings from any Working Sets that you do not contribute to.
  • Set the File Search scope to only include Working Sets that you contribute to.

When using working sets, the second drop down arrow (Task Activation History) will reveal task activation history for the currenlty selected working set. Choosing a different working set will then only reveal tasks previously activated while the that working set was active. To see the aggregate of all previously active tasks in the task activation history drop down you need to select "Show All" from the work set selection drop down.

Spell checking

On Eclipse versions earlier than 3.3, the spell checking must be set up manually. Spell checking is supported in the task editor for local tasks and for connectors that support rich editing (e.g. Bugzilla, Trac).

  • To install spell checking for editors that support it you need to enable the preference in General -> Editors -> Text Editors -> Spelling.
  • You also need to install a dictionary, some instructions are here. A word list is available [here] as well.

Mylar-spell-checking-preference.gif


Keyboard mappings on Linux

If you are running Mylyn on X-Windows, for example on Linux, FreeBSD, AIX and HP-UX, some keyboard bindings may not work by default.

If the Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Arrow Up shortcut for Mark as Landmark does not work do the following:

  • Menu Bar -> Desktop -> Control Centre -> Keyboard Shortcuts -> Move one workspace up, Move one workspace down: disable both.

If Alt+Click quick unfiltering does not work try one of the following:

  • Hold down the Windows key while holding Alt, if available (ironic, but unsurprisingly this key is not usually mapped on Linux).
  • Disable the Alt+drag to move functionality:

GNOME Desktop

  1. Open a terminal and run gconf-editor
  2. Go into: /apps/metacity/general
  3. Edit the mouse_button_modifier field. Setting it to nothing disables it. You can use <Super> to set it to the windows key.
  4. Exit gconf-editor.

KDE Desktop

  1. Run the KDE Control Center.
  2. Go to the Desktop/Window Behavior panel and select the Window Actions tab.
  3. Down in the Inner Window, Titlebar & Frame area, change the Modifier Key option from Alt to Meta.

Reconfiguring Eclipse to use the Meta or Win key instead is not possible due to the Eclipse bug 55236: Please support SWT.MOD4 on platforms other than the Mac. Consider voting on that bug if you feel that should be possible.

Also, see keyboard shortcuts.

Task List

Icon Legend

Please see the Tips & Tricks page.

Open the UI Legend via the Task List view menu button located next to minimize button in top right corner of Task List view)

Task Creation

There are several ways to create new tasks:

  • Task List toolbar item
  • Task List context menu, which contains a new Local Task action that will create local tasks without briging up repository selection. Shortcut is the Ins key, if available.
  • File -> New or Alt+Shift+N, T (note that you may need to reset your perspective to have Task and Query automatically appear in the Alt+Shift+N menu).

Scheduling

Mylyn provides two kinds of dates for scheduling.

Scheduled Date

  • A soft date intended for personal scheduling and can be easily deferred as priorities change. Intended to be the date that you plan to start working on the task.
  • Once a task hits its start date it will turn red, indicating that the task should be activated and worked on.
  • If you schedule a task for Today it will turn blue instead of red and be scheduled for the end of your workday, as specified in Preferences -> Task List. This is to help avoid needing to reschedule tasks throughout the workday. At the end of the workday tasks will turn red.
  • When you schedule a task for "today" it will be scheduled for the

Due Date

  • A hard date he date that the task has to be completed by. This is hard date and often related to external constraints such as deadlines.
  • If shared task repositories or calendaring tools are used due dates are synchronized in order to be visible to other team members.
  • A task with a due date has a small clock overlay that is blue before the date and red after.

Weekly Progress

When in Focus on Workweek mode (right-most toolbar button), the Task List will show a JUnit-style progress bar which indicates progress on the tasks scheduled for that week. Each task that is scheduled for the week but not yet completed adds to the bar. A task completed by you adds to the green progress in the bar. Deferring a task to a future week will also add to the apparent progress because it will remove the task from the current week. Mousing over the bar will indicate details about your progress, such as the number of tasks and hours completed. To avoid the need for manual estimation by default every task is estimated for 1 hour, but if you have longer or shorter running tasks that week you can adjust the estimate in the task editor's Planning page to ensure that the progress bar is accurate.

Note that when in Focus on Workweek mode the Task List will show each of the tasks scheduled for this week. However, overdue tasks and those with incoming changes will also show, making the number of tasks visible not be a reliable indicator of progress on the tasks planned for the week.

Weekly-progress.gif

Progress for Categories

Categories show progress for the number of completed tasks.

File:Progress-categories.gif

Incoming Changes

All comments added since your last reading of a repository task will be automatically expanded when a task with incoming changes is opened. Incoming changes are retrieved with the background synchronization to avoid waiting for the server when opening. Note that a background synchronization is still kicked off upon opening in case changes came in since the last scheduled synchronization. Repository tasks can be explicitly marked as read or unread.

Incoming-changes.gif

Task Repository Integration

Task repositories are easy to add, and can be named via the Task Repositories view. An icon decoration indicates the repository type. A task repository can be associated with a project, enabling it to be used for actions such as resolving bug hyperlinks. Note: you do not need to associate all of your projects with repositories after updating, since you will be prompted to do this when the associate is needed.

Task-repository-integration.gif

After the Task Repository has been setup and associated with a project, you need to create a new query against that repository to pull down the task list.

See Task-focused programming with Mylyn, Part 1, Querying a repository.

Open Task dialog

An Open Type style dialog is available for opening tasks (Ctrl+F12) and for activating tasks (Ctrl+F9). The list is initially populated by recently active tasks. The active task can also be deactivated via Ctrl+Shift+F9. This can be used as a keyboard-only alternative for multi-tasking without the Task List view visible. These actions appear in the Navigate menu.

Open-task-dialog.gif

Open Repository Task dialog

For tasks not available on Task List view, there is a Open Repository Task dialog (Ctrl+Shift+F12). On this case, the task can be opened by informing its ID and repository. This way the task will be retrieved from repository without being added to task list.

Optionally, you can add the remote task to task list, by checking the Add to Task List category option and informing the category where it will be inserted.

Multiple tasks can be added simultaneously by informing a sequence of IDs, separated by commas, e.g. "1,2,3".

Repository task attachments

Repository task attachments (supported by the Bugzilla and Trac connectors) can be attached via drag-and-drop from both within the Eclipse workspace and from outside, and from text selections, which will invoke the attachment wizard. Attachments can be opened with a browser or corresponding editor.

Repository-task-attachments.gif

Hyperlinking

In the task editor, comments that include text of the form bug#123 or task#123 or bug 123 will be hyperlinked. In order to support hyperlinks within other text editors such as code or txt files, the project that contains the file must be associated with a particular task repository. To do this, right click on the project > Properties > Task Repository and select the task repository used when working with this project. Then in the editors such as the java source editor or the default text editor, enter a reference such as bug#123. Ctrl+clicking on this text will open the bug in the rich editor.

Task List backup and restore

Where does Mylyn keep the task list?

By default Mylyn keeps your task list in <workspace>/.mylyn/tasklist.xml.zip. You can change this in the Mylyn Task List preferences (Window -> Preferences -> Mylyn -> Task List -> Task Data).

Where does Mylyn keep the task list backups?

By default, Mylyn keeps the task list backups in the <workspace>/.mylyn/backup folder. The location of this file, as well as backup scheduling, can be changed in Preferences -> Mylyn -> Tasks in the Task Data -> Backup section.

How do I restore my task list from a backup?

Task and context data can be restored from a backup snapshot zip file via File -> Import -> Mylyn Task Data. By default backup snapshots are taken daily and kept for 30 days.

Tasklist-restore.gif

Can I create manual backups?

Yes. Use File -> Import/Export -> Mylyn Task Data.

File:Mylar-tasklist-backup.gif

Note: uninstalling a connector will cause all of the queries and tasks of that kind to disappear from the Task List, but if you reinstall that connector they will reappear.

If the Task List is blank, either Mylyn failed to install or update, or there was a problem reading the Task List. By default Mylyn keeps your Task List in <workspace>/.mylyn/tasklist.xml. If you move workspaces, and have not changed the Mylyn data directory via the Task List preference page, the new location will be used when Eclipse restarts (hit Restore Defaults on that page to copy tasks back to the default location). If your tasks disappear due to to a bug you can check the .mylyn folder for a tasklist-backup.xml file, which will contain the previously-saved list.

Report Bugs from Error Log

Bugs can created directly from events in the Error Log view. This will create a new repository task editor with the summary and description populated with the error event's details. If the Connector you are using does not have a rich editor, the event details will be placed into the clipboard so that you can paste them into the web-based editor that will be opened automatically.

Report-bugs-error-log.gif

Automatic Duplicate Detection

The Search for Duplicates button on the New Repository Task editor encourages and facilitates finding similar bug reports before creating a new one. Potential duplicates are displayed in the Search view which can be used to open a bug and comment or vote if a duplicate is found. The current duplicate detection mechanism uses stack traces, either automatically inserted by the Report as Bug mechanism, or manually pasted into the Description area. All descriptions and comments of bugs on the corresponding repository are included in the search.

Automatic-duplicate-detection.gif

Submitting Contexts

When submitting comments, contexts can be attached by selecting the corresponding check-box in the Actions section.

Submitting-contexts.gif

Keybindings

F2 rename
F4 show tooltip
F5 synchronize
Alt + Down go to next unread
Alt + Up go to previous unread
Alt + R mark as read
Alt + U mark as unread
Esc hide tooltip
Enter open task
Insert new local task
Ctrl+C Copy details
Ctrl+F Find

Task Repositories

Opening a Repository Task

The recommended way to access repository tasks is with Queries. For example, you can add a query for every task assigned to you and every task that you are CC'd on. However, sometimes you may know a particular task key or ID, and want to access it without creating or modifying a query.

The quickest way to do this is to enter the task's key into the Find box in the Task List. You will immediately see whether this task is already in your Task List. If not, click the Search repository for key or or summary, and then simply hit Enter once the Search dialog comes up.

MylynSearchById.png

The Ctrl+Shift+F12 shortcut can also be used to invoke this action, and will additionally inspect the contents of the clipboard to look for a task key/ID to populate the Task Search dialog with (e.g., if you copied they key from an email message). The Ctrl+F12 Open Task dialog also provides a link to the Task Search page. Note that off a task is selected in the active editor or the Task List, the repository in the Search dialog will be now automatically set to the corresponding repository, otherwise the previous repository will be used.

There other common ways of getting a particular repository task into your Task List are:

  • Drag the URL of the task into the Task List. Note that you need to hold down Ctrl if dragging from Internet Explorer.
  • Search for the task and use the popup menu in the Search view or on the task editor after opening. Note that you can also create a Task List query from a search via the Search view.

Synchronization

Repository tasks and queries are synchronized in order to reflect the latest changes. These changes are decorated with an incoming arrow, shown in the tooltip for the task, and highlighted in the task editor when opened. All tasks changed on the server are synchronized, not just those that match queries. Note that Mylyn does not have an explicit offline mode and does not require that you turn off synchronization when working offline.

Tasks are synchronized the following ways:

  • Automatically: by default tasks will be incrementally synchronized with the repository every 20 minutes. Automatic synchronization can be disabled via the Synchronize Automatically option in the view menu (e.g. when working with intermittently available connectivity). The synchronization interval can be changed via Preferences -> Mylyn -> Task List.
  • On open: tasks are synchronized automatically in the background when a task editor is opened.
  • Manually: tasks can be synchronized manually via the Synchronize actions on Task List elements or via the toolbar.

Disconnected mode

A task repository can be put into Disconnected mode via the popup menu in the Task Repositories view. This can be useful if the task repository is not being used any more (e.g. no longer engaged with the project), or is no longer available (e.g. no longer available online). Mylyn's offline support will ensure that you can still access tasks that you have worked with via their offline copies, and the Disconnected mode will ensure that synchronization warnings do not appear.

Synchronizing All Tasks

If properties of a repository change that are not picked up by automatic synchronization, e.g. the user get assigned additional privileges in the repository, it can be desirable to do a manual synchronization. Since Mylyn 2.2 the popup menu in the Task Repositories view has an entry Synchronize All Tasks to refresh cached information for all tasks in the task list for that repository.

Task-Focused UI

Alt+Click navigation

When a view is in Focused mode, you can Alt+Click a node in order to temporarily show all of it's children.

  • Once an element that was not interesting is selected with the mouse, the uninteresting elements will disappear.
  • Alt+Right Arrow can be used instead of Alt+Click, but still requires a mouse selection of an element in order for the uninteresting elements to disappear.
  • Alt+Click can be held down when drilling down from a top-level element, e.g. navigating from a project element with everything filtered right down to a method declaration.
  • Multiple Alt+Clicks are supported, but as soon as a normal click is made uninteresting elements will disappear.
  • Ctrl+clicks (i.e. disjoint selections, use Command key on Mac) are also supported and will cause each element clicked to become interesting. The first non Ctrl+click will cause uninteresting elements to disappear. Note that Ctrl+clicked element will become interesting (turn from gray to black) but only the most recently-clicked one will be selected while Alt is held down.

Automatically toggle focus on navigator views

For navigator views (Package Explorer, Project Explorer and Navigator) the Apply Mylyn button can be set to automatically toggle on with task activation and off with task deactivation. Note that the context-related preferences (including this one) are in Preferences -> Mylyn -> Context.

Auto-appy-mylar.gif

Working Set integration

When Focus is applied to a navigator view the working sets filter for that navigator view will be disabled, ensuring that you see elements when working on elements that span working sets. In order to force only elements within one working set to show do the following:

  • Set the view to show working sets as top-level elements.
  • Use the Go Into action on the popup menu of the working set node in the view to scope the view down to just the working set.

Focus the Java Browsing Perspective views

The leftmost toolbar button visible in the image below will toggle focus on the Packages, Types and Members views of the Java Browsing Perspective.

Mylar-java-browsing.gif

Team Support

Configuring the Synchronize view for change sets

There are two modes for Eclipse's Change Sets support: the models mode (Eclipse 3.2 and later) and the standard mode. These modes are unrelated to Mylyn and apply to both Mylyn's automated Change Sets and the ones you can created manually in Eclipse. Note that not all tools may support both modes. The instructions below are for the CVS support included with Mylyn. Refer to the Mylyn integration documentation for your source control plug-in for additional instructions for Mylyn change set integration, if available.

The models mode is toggled via Synchronize View -> Preferences -> CVS -> Allow Models to participate in synchronizations. The Eclipse UI for Change Sets is not obvious so consider the following guidelines if you are having problems with it.

  • Subclipse users: note that Subclipse 1.2.3 and later functions as if in the models mode described below, so the additional configuration step is not needed.

If you are using the standard mode, Change Sets toolbar button will only appear if the Synchronize view is in Incoming or Outgoing mode, not in the combined Incoming/Outgoing mode. This button must be pressed in order for change sets to appear. For working with CVS two modes are indistinguishable beyond this limitation. Subclipse only supports the standard mode. If you switch modes you must re-create your synchronization via the Synchronize... button available from the first toolbar button on the Synchronize view.

Mylar-changesets-subclipse.gif

If you are using the models mode, which is recommended if available for your team provider, you will notice that the Mylyn Active Change Sets work show up with a decoration in the lower-right corner, and that you can view both incoming and outgoing change sets at the same time.

  • Note: if you have enabled the models mode, but do not see the overlay icon visible in the screenshot below, it is because you are using an old non-models based synchronization. Old synchronizations are not updated automatically when you switch modes so you must create a new one.

Mylar-changesets-model-based.gif

Automatic change sets

Operations such as committing, updating, and patch creation can all be performed on Mylyn's automatically managed Change Sets. Right+click the change set node to get the corresponding Team menu. Changed resources that are not a part of any task context will appear under the root of the Synchronize view. If needed missing resources can be added to the task context Change Set via the Synchronize View by right+clicking the resource and selecting Add to and then selecting the corresponding task.

Automatic commit messages

Mylyn will automatically generate commit messages for you when you use its Change Set support. To modify the template go to Window -> Preferences -> Mylyn -> Team -> Commit Comment Templates.

Mylar-commit-tempates.gif

Working with patches

When applying patches, the preferred scenario is to have a task context attached to the task along with the patch. Since this is not always feasible, Mylyn provides an action in the popup menu of the Synchronize view that supports adding changed elements to the task context.

  1. Activate the task containing the patch.
  2. Apply the patch. If yo uare using automatic change sets, this will cause the change set created by Mylyn to contain the outoing changes. If it doesn't you can use the Add to action on the popup menu to add the elements to the corresponding change set.
  3. Invoke the Add to Task Context action on the change set node, causing all of the changed files to be added to the task context. You can also invoke this action on a selection one or more elements (e.g. files) in the view.

Synchronize-view-add.gif

Task Repository Connectors

Mylyn allows you to collaborate on tasks via a shared task repository, also known as bug tracking systems. In order to collaborate, you need to have a Connector to your particular repository.

Presently Bugzilla, JIRA, and Trac are supported. To connect to unsupported repositories, see Generic Web Repository Connectors. Also, be sure to vote for your favourite Connector to see it supported earlier, or create a new bug if your issue tracker is not listed.

Bugzilla Connector

Once Mylyn is installed there are a few steps involved to get up and running.

  • To access tasks (reports/issues) on a repository such as Bugzilla you must first set up a Task Repository
    • Navigate to Window -> Show View -> Other -> Mylyn -> Task Repositories to open the Task Repositories view. Task Repositories view can also be launched via the Task List view menu.
    • Launch the add repository wizard by pressing the add repository button located in the view's toolbar Mylar-add-repository.png.
    • The first page of this wizard asks for the type of repository you wish to connect to (if you have installed multiple connectors). Select Bugzilla for example and press the Next button.
    • On the second page you can enter the repository's address and your login credentials. After filling in these details, press the Validate button to ensure the repository exists and your login credentials are valid. Once the settings validate you can finish the wizard. The repository you added will be shown in the Task Repositories view.

Repository Configuration

  • Once the repository has been created, you may add queries to the Task List.
    • In the Task List view right click anywhere in the list pane and select New Query from the context menu.
    • Choose the repository you added in the previous steps.
    • Enter query title and search criteria and then press Finish.
    • A query with the title you gave will appear in the Task List and will synchronize with the remote repository. If the query has hits they will appear within the query folder you've created.
    • Double click to open a hit. Double click on the query to edit the query parameters.
    • Click on the lightly shaded button (left of task icon) in the Task List to activate the task. Click again to deactivate.

See also Bugzilla Connector Troubleshooting.


Bugzilla Tasks

  • If the Bugzilla task's severity is "major", "blocker", or "critical", the task icon in the Task List will be decorated with a red dot.
  • If the Bugzilla task's severity is "enhancement" the task icon in the Task List will be decorated with a green triangle.
  • Tasks will be colored green in the task list if they were resolved today and are owned by you. Unfortuantely Bugzilla does not have a notion of a completion date so we simply check the last comment timestamp and assume it to be the completion date (see bug 215342).

Tips for server administrators

Mylyn periodically checks config.cgi to retrieve the repository configuration. On Eclipse.org this resulted in heavy CPU Load for the regeneration and a big surge in band width use.

  • This configuration seldom changes so can be cached and served from a file instead of being regenerated every time. While the size of this file tends to be small when hosting less than a dozen projects, it can be large on repositories holding large numbers of projects, e.g. 900K on bugs.eclipse.org.
  • Generated bugzilla output contains a lot of unnecessary whitespace which can be trimmed before caching. For bugs.eclipse.org this reduces the file to about 660K.
  • The remaining file contains a lot of redundancy so can be gzipped for further reduction. On bugs.eclipse.org this leaves about 28K, a considerable saving.

Mylyn has been modified to accept gzip encoding on all requests, and will do content negotiation. See bug 205708.

To add caching for your Bugzilla repository:

  • Change the name of config.cgi to config-stock.cgi and get the caching code in a new config.cgi.
  • The current version of this caching config.cgi script is hosted at:
 via CVS: :pserver:anonymous@dev.eclipse.org:/cvsroot/technology/org.eclipse.phoenix/infra-scripts/bugzilla/
 or: http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/org.eclipse.phoenix/infra-scripts/bugzilla/?root=Technology_Project
  • Modifications on this script are followed on bug 205416

Trac Connector

The Trac connector offers two access methods:

  • Trac 0.9 and later: In this mode the standard Trac web interface is used for repository access. Tickets may be created and edited through a web browser.
  • XML-RPC Plugin (Trac trunk): This requires the latest revision (1175) of the XmlRpcPlugin for Trac to be enabled for the accessed repository. The XmlRpcPlugin provides a remote interface to the Trac repository and is distributed separately from Trac (see #217). Currently, Trac and the XmlRpcPlugin need to be installed from source. See these install instructions for requirements and documentation.

The Trac connector integrates Trac queries into the Task List. If you do not know your Trac repository version use the Automatic setting and click Validate Settings.


New Task Editor

A rich editor for creating new Trac tasks is available for repositories that use XML-RPC (see the FAQ for XML-RPC configuration instructions).

Trac-editor-new.gif


Rich Editor, Attachments and Offline support

The Trac connector supports the rich task editor. Attributes and comments can be viewed and edited offline, synchronization is done in the background, and attachments can be posted and retrieved.

Task Context attachments are supported via the context menu actions in the Task List. This support requires the Trac XML-RPC plug-in to be enabled and the integration will fall back to the web mode if it is not, (see: Trac Connector troubleshooting).

Trac-editor.gif

JIRA Connector

See this page for install instructions and additional screen shots. Note that the Mylyn JIRA connector requires at least JIRA version 3.3.3 and SOAP/RPC services have to be enabled on the server.

Rich Editor

The JIRA connector provides a rich editor, offline editing, and change notifications.

File:Jira-editor.gif

Search Integration

Searching through JIRA repositories is integrated with the Search dialog.

Jira-search.gif

Query

The JIRA query dialog has been streamlined into a single page. Date range queries are now supported.

Jira-query.gif

See also JIRA Connector Troubleshooting.

Generic Web Repository Connector

The generic web repository connector is NOT part of the default Mylyn install. You can install it from a separate extras update site. See download page for more details.

The web connector allows connection to repositories that are not currently supported by a rich connector. Out of the box it provides templates for the following issue tracking systems:

  • Google Code Hosting (code.google.com)
  • IssueZilla (java.net, dev2dev, tigris.org)
  • GForge (objectweb.org)
  • SourceForge (sf.net), see Using Sourceforge with Mylyn
  • Mantis (www.futureware.biz/mantis)
  • ChangeLogic (changelogic.araneaframework.org)
  • OTRS (otrs.org)
  • phpBB
  • vBulletin

Lists of issues can be retrieved from a web page using a simple template configuration. Templates can be also parametrized to make it easier to customize them for a specific project.

The parameters used for configuring project properties are typically substituted into the URLs used to access the repository. Substitution and matching rules can be edited under the Advanced Configuration section on both the Repository Settings page and the Edit Query page.

For example, consider the configuration steps for GlassFish project at java.net:

1. Create new Generic web-based repository (in the Task Repository view). GlassFish is using IssueZilla and has a preconfigured template that can be selected by server url https://glassfish.dev.java.net/issues. You can also specify all fields manually in the Advanced Configuration section. For GlassFish the following settings are required:

  • Task URL: ${serverUrl}/show_bug.cgi?id=
  • New Task URL: ${serverUrl}/enter_bug.cgi?issue_type=DEFECT
  • Query URL: ${serverUrl}/buglist.cgi?component=glassfish&issue_status=NEW&issue_status=STARTED&issue_status=REOPENED&order=Issue+Number
  • Query Pattern: <a href="show_bug.cgi\?id\=(.+?)">.+?<span class="summary">(.+?)</span>
Note: Query Pattern field should be a regexp with 1st matching group on Issue ID and 2nd on Issue Description. Alternatively, you could use named matching groups: ({Id}.+?), ({Description}.+?), ({Status}.+?), ({Owner}.+?) and ({Type}.+?), then they can appear in query regexp in an arbitrary order. The second option requires build 2.0.0v20070717 or later.
Note: the above fields are using parameter substitution ${..}. Variables serverUrl, userId and password are substituted from the values of corresponding fields of the repository preference page. In addition you can specify any arbitrary parameters and their values that will be also substituted into the template fields.
Note: the SourceForge template included with connector assume that single repository is used for all projects. User should create multiple queries, and set project parameters at the query level. Because web connector don't support actions like "open repository task" there is really no need to create separate repositories per project and if you think about it that is how it work for connectors for Bugzilla and JIRA. However, it is still possible to setup separate repository per project using repository url like http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=172199 and accordingly updating derived urls is the advanced repository settings.

For the web repository that require user to login, use advanced configuration in following way. This configuration is for GForge, you might need to change it for other repositories:

  • Login Request URL - an address that form is using to submit login request: ${serverUrl}/account/login.php?return_to=&form_loginname=${userId}&form_pw=${password}&login=Login (POST)
  • Login Form URL - an address where login form is located (only needed if server need a login token in the parameters of the Login Request URL): ${serverUrl}/account/login.php
  • Login Token Pattern - pattern to extract value of the loginToken parameter from the form page (only needed if server need a login token in the parameters of the Login Request URL and Login Form URL is specified): session_ser=(.+?)

2. Create a new query for the GlassFish task repository created above (either from popup context menu in the Task List view or using a "New..." wizard from File -> New... -> Other... menu).

  • Query URL and Query Pattern in the Repository Preferences are used as default query parameters and can be overwritten in Advanced Configuration section in Query Preferences. Custom parameter values can also be overridden here as well as new parameters for substitution into the specific query.
  • In the Advanced Configuration section of the "New Query" dialog, there is a "Preview" button. You can use it to test your query pattern.

Generic-web-repository-settings.gif

XPlanner Connector

The XPlanner connector is currently in the Experimental state. It supports XPlanner version .7.

Query

XPlanner Connector supports creating queries from your XPlanner repository. You can select to create a query for your own in progress tasks (the default), or select projects or iterations or user stories from a list. You can also select ones assigned to you, or all. Currently you can choose to group the results by tasks or user stories. If you group the results by tasks, this will result in a single query with the applicable tasks underneath it. If you choose to group the results by user stories, this will result in multiple queries added to the task list, each one corresponding to a user story, with the applicable tasks underneath it:

XPlannerQuery.jpg

Task Editor

A rich editor for editing XPlanner tasks is available. It currently doesn't support all of the attributes you can change in XPlanner itself, but allows you to modify the basic ones necessary for XP development -- e.g. summary, description, estimated time. The attributes section of the editor displays an XPlanner-like view of the meaningful attributes, some of which are not editable.

XPlannerTaskEditor.gif


User Story Editor

If you open an XPlanner element by id, using the "Open Repository Task by Key/ID" dialog, and that id is a user story id, you will see the read-only user story editor. This editor is just useful for seeing the major details of a user story -- no items in it can be changed, since there is no really good mapping between a user story and a Mylyn task.

XPlannerUserStoryEditor.gif

Integration with other tools

See the Mylyn Extensions page for a listing of integration downloads.

Mylyn relies on Bridges to integrate the context model with the structure and UI features of domain-specific tools. To create a Bridge, see Creating Bridges.

The core set of Bridges supports the Eclipse SDK (i.e. has bridges for Java, JUnit, PDE, Ant and Resources). The Resources Bridge enables a basic level of interoperability with other tools that use files (e.g. .php, .cpp), and enables Mylyn filtering to work for generic views that show those files (i.e. the Project Explorer, Navigator) and any corresponding markers (i.e. the Problems and Tasks views). This is only the most basic context model integration, and does not offer the benefits of a specialized structure bridge, such as making declarations part of the context and providing Active Search facilities. Without a Bridge Mylyn cannot be applied to tool-specific views.

If you would like to see support for a particular tool, first do a search of the open bridge requests and vote for the corresponding bug if your tool is there, or create a new bug. Also consider adding your experiences to the "Integration..." section of the Mylyn FAQ.

Using Mylyn with WTP

Context modeling works at the file level, noting the limitation of bug 144882: interest filter fails on WTP Dynamic Web Project

External builders

If an external builder (e.g. Maven, pydev, or other Ant-based builders) is producing output files that are being automatically added to your context because they are not being marked "derived" as with Eclipse-based builders. You may note that such files are always show as interesting when they are generated or updated and can not be filtered away, since Mylyn expects all files that have changed as part of the task context to have interest.

In this case you can explicitly exclude these files from being added to the task context the Preferences -> Mylyn -> Resources page. For example, if the output folder of the builder is "target", you could set this the following way. Similarly, you could add a filter for "*.pyc" to exclude all files generated with that extension.

Source code generators can be considered analogous since they produce intermediate files. However, if you want to inspect the results of the source code generation after it is done you can avoid setting the exclusion. Note that if a large number of files was generated not all generated files may be unfiltered.

Mylar-resource-exclusion.gif

Back to the top