Codetrail

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Codetrail: connecting code and web resources in Eclipse and Firefox

When faced with the need for documentation, examples, bug fixes, error descriptions, code snippets, workarounds, templates, patterns, or advice, software developers frequently turn to their web browser. Web resources both organized and authoritative as well as informal and community-driven are heavily used by developers. The time and attention devoted to finding (or re-finding) and navigating these sites is significant. We demonstrate how the developer's use of web resources can be improved by connecting the Eclipse IDE and the Firefox web browser using Codetrail, which provides a communication channel and shared data model for these applications. By combining information previously available only to the IDE or the web browser alone (such as editing history, code contents, and recent browsing), Codetrail can automate previously manual tasks and enable new interactions that exploit the marriage of data and functionality from Firefox and Eclipse. Just as the IDE will focus the contents of peripheral views on the particular code or task with which the developer is engaged, so, too, the web browser can be focused on the developer's current context and task.