Parent-pom support

What exactly you suggesting here? Can you please be more specific?

This is a wishlist item.

An example of a project that uses a parent-pom can be found at: http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/maven2/maven/wagon-provider-parent/1.0-alpha-1/wagon-provider-parent-1.0-alpha-1.pom

There is a section within the pom details a parent pom:

=======
<project>
....
<parent>
<groupId>maven</groupId>
<artifactId>wagon</artifactId>
<version>1.0-alpha-1</version>
</parent>
=======

This parent definition could be populated by the POM editor by searching for projects that are pom.xml-only artifact projects to easily find and extend. Example: http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/maven2/maven/wagon/1.0-alpha-1/ only has pom.xml and the artifact <type>pom</type> also indicates this is a pom.xml-only project, making it very likely it is intended as a parent pom.

By having the search ability, should reduce copy-paste syndrome related to parent-pom section, as well as help keep up-to-date with the most recent version (or, at least the ability to see which versions are available) of the parent-pom.

Ok. But, I am still not sure how you expect this feature to work and how user would interact with such search.

I don't know how much it could be useful but here is my interpretation:

Emily an Eclipse user which works with the org.cybergarage.cyberlink project she has downloaded the whole directories from https://cgupnpjava.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/cgupnpjava/trunk/cyberlink, so she has a filesyetem on her local computer like that:
cyberlink\pom.xml
cyberlink\upnp-stack\pom.xml
cyberlink\samples\pom.xml
cyberlink\samples\light\pom.xml

Use Case Alpha:
Emily is now editing the cyberlink\samples\light\pom.xml file and she discover inside her Problems' Eclipse View that the pom is pointing to an old version of the parent pom.xml so a quickfix will update the information to the latest. The M2Plugin has discovered the "conflict" by inspecting:

• the cyberlink\samples\light\pom.xml <parent> section
• pom.xml file contained in parent folders of the light project, i.e.: cyberlink\samples\pom.xml and cyberlink\pom.xml
• looking on the project maven2 repository in case that no "meaningful" parent folder are exists

Use Case Beta:
Emily is creating a new project in cyberlink\samples\hifi and she is now editing the cyberlink\samples\hifi\pom.xml . The M2Eclipse is smart enough to propose in the Problems' Eclipse View a warning which states <parent> section is missing and as quick fix it will propose to use one of pom.xml file contained in the parent folders, i.e.: cyberlink\samples\pom.xml, or cyberlink\pom.xml.

IMHO, the advantages of the previous Use case are: ease the process to keep parent section updated with the latest version for former, ease the creation of pom.xml for new "sub-module" for the latter.

WDYT?

Thanks Stefano, that is appropriate description of the use cases.

Along use case Beta (new project or new module of a complex project), I have always shown people to

1) look for an existing project with the parent POM already in place.

2) copy the <parent> section and paste it into the new project/module.

Very old school.

Please note that xml pom editor now provides completion in parent section (groupid, artifactid and version) scoped to the indexed pom artifacts.

We'll have similar search feature in the form-based editor, and we'll work on advanced quick-fix features in the future.