AppWrench still supported for Google App Engine (Eclipse)?

Question

I read about AppWrench and it looks like a wonderful utility for local app engine datastore viewing and manipulation, however it seems quite dated. The last Support Forum post at their website (that had a response) is over 2 years old.

Since GAE and the DataStore are always improving, I am wondering if this tool still works for local development?

When I tried to install it via Install New Software in Eclipse, I get this error:

Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.
  Software being installed: App Wrench 1.5.0 (com.onpositive.gae.appwrench.feature.group 1.5.0)
  Missing requirement: App Wrench 1.5.0 (com.onpositive.gae.appwrench.feature.group 1.5.0) requires 'org.mortbay.jetty.util 0.0.0' but it could not be found

Before I spend much time downloading and installing any missing dependencies (I am using Eclipse IDE Java Juno release with latest app engine/gwt plug-in), can you tell me does Appwrench still work ?

Instead is Google planning to enhance the dev server Datastore Viewer soon to match production features? Any other ideas? Thanks!

Answer 1

It was an amazing tool but I'm afraid it looks abandonware. It's a shame, the local (and remote) datastore edit console is really useful. I'm getting the same error as you on Eclipse Juno 32, both Windows and Linux :-(

There may be a way to repackage the plugin, to make it work under Juno. Not sure it's worth the effort, about 50% of the features were not working for me even on Eclipse 3.7. See these answers: Installing GWT plugin with Eclipse

BTW, recently someone on the GAE forum, asked for feedback regarding a datastore console, that would provide some functionality that AppWrench used to offer: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/google-appengine/CtjsZukJyL4/bmg582Ow7uAJ