Eclipse Orion 14.0

Release Date
Deliverables

The main deliverables for the Orion 14.0 release are a development environment that runs in the browser with a multi-user server based on a Node (server and Electron app) or Java back end.

With each of these two runtimes, the client code representing the features of Orion will be served to a supported browser and allow additional functionality to be installed client side through a plug-in framework.

Primary support is for Web programming languages, however any file type can be edited.

Compatibility

Orion aims to provide compatibility for plugins. Plugins written for previous versions of Orion, that only use well documented services, will continue to work in Orion 14.0.

Documented server REST API has only changed in compatible ways. Existing client code running against previous versions of the Orion server (either Java or Node) will continue to work in Orion 14.0.

No compatibility is provided within Orion server code, on either Java or Node servers.

Internationalization

All client side messages are externalized, and if additional language packs are present they will be used, based on the browser's language settings. Server strings are not externalized and messages from third party libraries used by Orion are not guaranteed to be externalized.

Target Environments

Java7 Based runtime for the Orion Server

Node.js (> v0.10.21) Based runtime for the Orion Node Server

Client Side Browser Support

  • Chrome/Chromium 48+
  • Firefox 45+
  • IE 11+
  • Safari 9+
Themes

Language Server Protocol

Investigate modifying the Orion language tooling to use / implement the Microsoft Language Server Protocol. https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-languageserver-protocol

Orion Electron App

Improve Orion as an Electron App implementation (investigate a public download, enhance the build update and test process to better handle native libraries)

Accessibility

Improve accessibility by addressing problems in traversal, coloring and screen reading

Investigate moving Orion Development to Github.com

Complete the move to Github.com

Ensure Language Tooling Currency

Ensure that JS/HTML/CSS/JSON/JAVA tooling supports the latest standards and continues to implement compelling features.

Custom Themes

Support simple, robust theming for the entire Orion IDE (instead of just the editor)

Investigate using ECMA 2015 Moduels

Investigate converting the Orion code base to use ECMA 2015 modules

Improve the Node Server

Improve the implementation of the Orion Node Server with an eye toward deprecating the Java Server