Pitfalls running E11 as embedded SWT browser in Eclipse

Recently I implemented a preview view for an Xtext DSL that uses an embedded jetty and renders a JSF screen without deployment. To make bidirectional navigation possible from Xtext to JSF and the other way round, I decided to use websockets. That worked pretty well since I am working on a mac, but when the customer tried to used it the application did not work at all because of Windows and IE11.

First of all there is a bug https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=404543 that runs IE in compatibility mode to IE9 that does not have websockets integrated. :-( After switching to Luna 4.4.1 it worked until the next bomb exploded. After exactly 6 reloads the browser raised a Security Error when someone starts to establish a websocket connection... That is because IE11 and below do not really close a websocket implicitly when a page is reloaded or closed as it happens in "modern" browsers automatically. The number of connections that are allowed is hard coded deep inside the registry. BTW I hate that registry stuff sooooo much.... After closing the websockets explicitly everything works as expected even within Windows 8.1 and IE11. The whole story took me 2 full days ... Why the hell does Microsoft always do things different in their Internet Explorer. Luckily I do not have to work with that environment sooo often.

Integration of Xtext with Flux

Flux is a very new project at Eclipse and we wanted to find out what it needs to integrate Xtext with this cool new technology. In the video you'll see syntax highlighting, content assist, validation and navigation in action.