Introduction to Eclipse plugin development

1
Introduction to Eclipse plugin development

• for CSU 670 course project,
• Selector language (Xaspect) editor plugin
  implementation

2
What is Eclipse?

• - Eclipse is a universal platformfor
  integrating development tools.
• - Open, extensible architecture based on
  plug-ins

3
UI Components

• SWT - Standard Widget Toolkit
• JFace Framework providing higher-level UI
  abstractions
• Workbench Provides reusable and extensible UI
  metaphors
• Text - Framework(s) for building high-function
  text editors
• UI Forms - Framework for building forms-based
  views and editors
• GEF - Framework for building rich graphical
  editors

4
SWT - Standard Widget Toolkit

• ? Platform-independent native widget toolkit

5
JFace

• ? Framework on top of SWT providing higher-level
  UI abstractions
• Application window menu bar, tool bar, content
  area status line
• Viewers (MVC pattern)
• Actions, action bars (abstracts menu items, tool
  items)
• Preference and wizard framework

6
Workbench

• ? Defines reusable and extensible UI metaphors
• Leverages extension point mechanism and JFace
  abstractions.
• Provides
• Views
• Editors
• Action sets
• Perspectives combination of Views and
• Editors
• -Wizards
• Preference pages
• -Commands and Key Bindings
• -Undo/Redo support
• -Presentations and Themes
• -Activities (aka Capabilities)
• -
• Is Dynamic-aware responds to registry changes
  and adds/removes views, action sets, etc.
  accordingly

7
Text Editor
? Framework(s) for building high-function text
editors

• document infrastructure
• text manipulation through text edits
• positions and linked position manager
• template support
• projection (aka folding) support
• source viewer framework
• provides Text-, SourceViewer and
  SourceViewerConfiguration
• concept of annotations, annotations painter,
  hovers
• concept of content assist
• incremental syntax coloring (presentation
  reconciler)
• incremental outline update (model reconciler)
• formatter infrastructure
• text editor framework
• leverages source viewer framework for use in
  workbench editors
• provides AbstractTextEditor

8
UI Forms

• Form consisting of multiple FormParts
• Extra widgets
• FormText (marked-up text)
• ScrolledForm
• Section
• MasterDetailsBlock
• Extra layouts
• TableWrapLayout (HTML-like)
• ColumnLayout (newspaper-like)
• Flat look, lightweight borders
• Forms-based multi-page editor
• Used extensively in PDE

9
GEF (Graphical Editor Framework)
? Framework for building rich graphical editors

• Draw2D - structured graphics drawing framework
• Graphical editor framework
• MVC architecture
• Undo/Redo support
• Palette and common tools for manipulating
  objects
• Integration with Properties and Outline view

10
User Assistance Components

• Eclipse Help Help UI on top of an extensible
  help content model
• Intro support Provides the welcome experience
  for your product
• Cheat sheets Provides guidance through complex
  tasks

11
Eclipse Help
? Help UI on top of an extensible help content
model

• HTML and XML based system
• Context-sensitive (F1) help
• Dynamic content generation
• Search engine
• Dynamic-aware
• Highly scalable (used on ibm.com)

Help UI User interface and dialogs
Help Core API to access the documents
guide.xml
lttoc label"Go wild user Guide"gt lttopic
label"Getting Started"gt ltanchor
id"gettingstarted"/gt lt/topicgt lttopic
label"Commands" href"doc/cmds.html"/gt
lt/tocgt
plugin.xml
ltextension point"org.eclipse.help.toc"gt lttoc
primarytrue" file"doc/guide.xml"/gt
lttoc file"doc/tipsAndTricks.xml"/gt lt/extensiongt
12
Eclipse Help
13
Intro support

• Provides the welcome experience for your
  product

Full mode
Standby mode

• HTML / CSS or SWT / Forms based
• Can run actions todrive the UI

14
Cheat sheets

• Guides the user through a series of complex
  tasks to achieve a goal

• Content written in XML
• Can run actions to drive the UI

15
Eclipse Plug-in Architecture

• Plug-in - smallest unit of Eclipse function
• Example the editor of our course project.
• Extension point - named entity for collecting
  contributions
• Example extension point for workbench text
  editor.
• Extension - a contribution
• Example extending the text editor to edit
  selector language with syntax highlighting and
  semantics checking.

16
Eclipse Plug-in Architecture

• Typical arrangement

plug-in B
plug-in A
contributes
extensionpoint P
extension
implements
interface I
class C

• Plug-in A
• Declares extension point P
• Declares interface I to go with P
• Plug-in B
• Implements interface I with its own class C
• Contributes class C to extension point P
• Plug-in A instantiates C and calls its I methods

creates, calls
17
Eclipse Plug-in Architecture

• Each plug-in
• Contributes to 1 or more extension points
• Optionally declares new extension points
• Depends on a set of other plug-ins
• Contains Java code libraries and other files
• May export Java-based APIs for downstream
  plug-ins
• Lives in its own plug-in subdirectory
• Details spelled out in the plug-in manifest
• Manifest declares contributions
• Code implements contributions and provides API
• plugin.xml file in root of plug-in subdirectory

18
Runtime Extension / extension point model
? Declarative extensibility mechanism
The extension-point defines the contract (markup
and code) for the extensions
Extension point declaration plugin.xml
ltextension-point idviews
nameViews schema"schema/view
s.exsd/gt
Metaphor disc spindle
Extension declaration plugin.xml
ltextension idcatalogView"
pointorg.eclipse.ui.viewsgt ltview
nameCatalog iconicons/catview.gif
classcom.acme.CatalogView/gt lt/extension
gt
19
A typical Plug-in Manifest
plugin.xml
ltplugin id com.example.tool" name
Example Plug-in Tool" class
"com.example.tool.ToolPlugin"gt ltrequiresgt
ltimport plugin "org.eclipse.core.resources"/gt
ltimport plugin "org.eclipse.ui"/gt
lt/requiresgt ltruntimegt ltlibrary name
tool.jar"/gt lt/runtimegt ltextension
point "org.eclipse.ui.preferencepages"gt
ltpage id "com.example.tool.preferences"
icon "icons/knob.gif" title Tool
Knobs" class "com.example.tool.ToolPrefe
renceWizard/gt lt/extensiongt ltextension-point
name Frob Providers id
"com.example.tool.frobProvider"/gt lt/plugingt
20
The Text Editor Framework

• The text editor framework provides a
  model-independent editor that supports the
  following features
• presentation and user modification of text
• standard text editing operations such as
  cut/copy/paste, find/replace
• support for context and pull-down menus
• visual presentation of text annotations in
  rulers
• automatic update of annotations as the user
  edits text
• presentation of additional information such as
  line numbers
• syntax highlighting
• content assist
• text outlining pages that show the hierarchical
  structure of the text
• context sensitive behavior
• hover support over rulers and text
• key binding contexts
• preference handling

21
Syntax coloring in Text Editor

• Syntax coloring is provided in the platform
  text framework using a model of
• Damage,
• Repair
• reconciling. 

22
Damage, repair, and reconciling

• Damage As the user modifies text in an editor,
  parts of the editor must be redisplayed to show
  the changes. 
• Repair A repairer must be able to derive all of
  the information it needs from a damage region in
  order to successfully describe the repairs that
  are needed for a particular content type.
• Reconciling describes the overall process of
  maintaining the presentation of a document as
  changes are made in the editor. 

23
Rule Based Reconciling

• public class MyRuleScanner extends
  RuleBasedScanner
• .
• public MyRuleScanner()
• IToken tagToken new Token(new
  TextAttribute(TAG_COLOR))
• IToken commentToken new Token(new
  
• 
  TextAttribute(COMMENT_COLOR))
• IRule rules new IRule2
• rules0 new SingleLineRule("ltmyTag",
  "myTaggt", tagToken)
• rules1 (new EndOfLineRule("//",
  commentToken))
• setRules(rules)
• ////// in subclass of SourceViewerConfiguration
• public IPresentationReconciler getPresentationReco
  nciler(ISourceViewer sourceViewer)
• PresentationReconciler reconciler new
  PresentationReconciler()
• DefaultDamagerRepairer dr new
  DefaultDamagerRepairer(getTagScanner())
• reconciler.setDamager(dr, Document.DEFAULT_CONTEN
  T_TYPE)
• reconciler.setRepairer(dr, IDocument.DEFAULT_CONT
  ENT_TYPE)