Plugin for the Android Project (Eclipse)

Question

I'm a new person in this area (plugin developing) and I want to create some kind of plugin for my app:

I've developed an android application and now I need to make a toolkit for the students for future work on this app. The idea is:

1) to make a manual for that app, so that students can read about classes and structure not in separate .doc file but inside Eclipse IDE, probably with some links to the code.

2) to make a supervise of the app's functions (so that students can check if all features (performance-UI design, connection to the external server/API's, etc) of the app are working properly, in case if they will change something). All these data should be in separate frame (looks like a toolkit). (I found information related to this here http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/tutorials/os-eclipse-jfeature/section5.html , but I'm not sure if it's gonna work for my idea)

I will be glad to get some links of tutorials that are related to my task as well as your suggestions for the set of the toolkit features (but also with links how to make it).

Thank you very much in advance! Hope to get your help :)

Answer 1

The thing for the manual is Javadoc, you can use it in eclipse with java as well as in android.

here are some links, first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javadoc

Then I can quickly explain why javadoc can be useful for you, first of all it allows to create a real manual (java API are created with javadoc) with (in my opinion) the easiest way you can imagine. You have to use a special comment tag that is:

/**
*
**/

When you put this before any declaration (methods, class, interfaces, fields etc) it will be included in the javadoc. You have standard things that can be added for example you can specify a description of the method, what it @return what @params it need and many other things, being very careful and precise you can link javadoc with each other, and create very complex and precise documentation.

In eclipse javadoc is useful because eclipse itself allows the user to interact with javadoc by default. For example if you want to know what a method do, just simply hang the mouse over the name of the method and a little yellow dialog will appear. If you also use ctrl-space you can have some tips also in it. Pressing ctrl-space shows for example all avaible public methods, with javadoc for each method you have the yellow description dialog. If you are instantiating a new object you can see how many (and what kind of parameters they have) constructor are definited and so on, I think it is very useful and important.

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For the second things if I understand what you want probably something like JUnit (a unit for the testing) can be ok for you.

http://www.junit.org

JUnit is a unit for testing the code, can be fully integrated with eclipse. In few word, for each part of the code you should write one or more test to check if its behaviour is correct. Once you've written some test you can run them automatically with an user-friendly interface that tell you how many test are failed, how many passed and what kind of error there are.

Why is useful to test each little (stupid?) thing of my code?

Imagine you have a working code (your code). Imagine you have someone working on it (your students).

How can a user be sure that any change he/she do it's ok with the existing code?

He/she should run the program and check each functionality one by one in order to find an error.

You understand that this is impossible. so JUnit do it for you with just one click (and if you want also in background).

So the student can add the code, and run the tests in order to see if the pre-existing code is still working.

The students can also write his own test to test automatically if all is ok. JUnit in facts allow you to test each part of the code without depending from the other, in this way, you can also test an internet connection without being connected to the net just "mocking" the connection.

I let this part without explanation because It is a long and complicated part. I gave you that "input" to stimulate you to read about testing and XP programming.

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