Eclipse Rich Client Platform (TM) Applications

553 Pages·2010·6.948 MB·English

by  McAffer, Jeff;Lemieux, Jean-Michel;Aniszczyk, Chris

Eclipse Rich Client Platform
Second Edition
The Eclipse Series
Eric McAffer, Erich Gamma, John Wiegand, Series Editors
Visit informit.com/series/eclipse for a complete list of available publications.
Eclipse is a universal, multilanguage software development environment—
an open, extensible, integrated development environment (IDE)—that
can be used for anything. Eclipse represents one of the most exciting
initiatives to come from the world of application development, and it has
the support of leading companies and organizations in the technology
sector. Eclipse is gaining widespread acceptance in both commercial
and academic arenas.
The Eclipse Series is the definitive collection of publications dedicated
to the Eclipse platform. Books in this series bring you key technical
information, critical insight, and the practical advice you need to build tools
to support this revolutionary open-source platform.
Eclipse Rich Client Platform
Second Edition
Jeff McAffer
Jean-Michel Lemieux
Chris Aniszczyk
Upper Saddle River, NJ • Boston • Indianapolis • San Francisco
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McAffer, Jeff.
Eclipse Rich Client Platform / Jeff McAffer, Jean-Michel Lemieux, Chris Aniszczyk.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-321-60378-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Computer software—Development. 2. Java (Computer program language)
3.Application software—Development. I. Lemieux, Jean-Michel. II. Aniszczyk,
Chris. III. Title.
QA76.76.D47M383 2010
005.13’3—dc22 2010006689
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by copyright,
and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a
retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or likewise. For information regarding permissions, write to:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Rights and Contracts Department
501 Boylston Street, Suite 900
Boston, MA 02116
Fax: [phone]
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-60378-4
ISBN-10: 0-321-60378-8
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at RR Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
First printing, May 2010
Contents
Foreword xxi
Preface xxv
Acknowledgments xxix
About the Authors xxxi
❍
Part I Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Eclipse as a Rich Client Platform 3
1.1 Eclipse 5
1.2 The Eclipse Rich Client Platform 5
1.3 Eclipse RCP over the Years 6
1.4 Uses of RCP 7
1.4.1 IBM Lotus and Eclipse RCP 7
1.4.2 NASA and the Eclipse RCP 10
1.5 Summary 12
1.6 Pointers 13
Chapter 2 Eclipse RCP Concepts 15
2.1 A Community of Plug-ins 15
2.2 Inside Plug-ins 18
2.3 Putting a System Together 19
2.4 OSGi Framework 20
2.5 Equinox 21
2.5.1 Applications 22
v
vi Contents
2.5.2 Products 22
2.5.3 Extension Registry 23
2.6 Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) 25
2.7 JFace 25
2.8 UI Workbench 25
2.8.1 Contribution-Based Extensibility 26
2.8.2 Perspectives, Views, and Editors 26
2.9 Summary 27
2.10 Pointers 27
❍
Part II RCP by Example 29
Chapter 3 Tutorial Introduction 31
3.1 What Is Hyperbola? 31
3.2 The Evolution of Hyperbola 32
3.3 Development Environment Installation 33
3.4 Sample Code 34
3.4.1 Moving from Chapter to Chapter 35
3.4.2 Comparing 35
3.5 Target Platform Setup 36
3.5.1 The Predefined Target 37
3.5.2 Defining Target Platforms 38
3.6 Learning by Example 42
3.7 Summary 44
3.8 Pointers 44
Chapter 4 The Hyperbola Application 45
4.1 Hyperbola “Hello, World” 45
4.2 Tour of the Code 51
4.2.1 Application 51
4.2.2 WorkbenchAdvisor 53
4.2.3 Perspective 53
4.2.4 WorkbenchWindowAdvisor 54
4.2.5 ActionBarAdvisor 55
4.2.6 Summary 55
Contents vii
4.3 Running and Debugging 55
4.3.1 Debugging 56
4.3.2 Launch Configurations 60
4.4 Summary 62
4.5 Pointers 62
Chapter 5 Starting the Hyperbola Prototype 63
5.1 Continuing from the Shell 64
5.1.1 Saving Window Location and Size 65
5.2 Adding a Contacts View 65
5.2.1 Adding the Contacts View to a Perspective 67
5.3 The Chat Model 70
5.4 Filling in the Contacts View 72
5.4.1 The ContactsView 72
5.4.2 Content Providers Overview 74
5.4.3 The Label Provider 77
5.5 Adding Images 78
5.6 Summary 81
5.7 Pointers 82
Chapter 6 Adding Actions 83
6.1 Adding to the Menus and Toolbar 84
6.1.1 Create a Top-Level Menu 85
6.1.2 Menu Managers 87
6.1.3 The Add Contact Action 88
6.1.4 Adding the Add Contact Action 91
6.1.5 Customizable Toolbars 93
6.2 Adding to the Status Line 93
6.2.1 Status Line—A Shared Resource 95
6.3 System Tray Integration 96
6.3.1 Obtaining a Display 97
6.3.2 Creating the Tray Item 98
6.4 Summary 100
6.5 Pointers 101
viii Contents
Chapter 7 Adding a Chat Editor 103
7.1 Views and Editors 104
7.2 Defining the Chat Editor 105
7.2.1 Editor Input 109
7.2.2 The Chat Action 110
7.3 Checkpoint 113
7.4 Summary 114
7.5 Pointers 114
Chapter 8 Branding Hyperbola 115
8.1 Defining the Hyperbola Product 115
8.2 Window Images 120
8.3 Customizing the Launcher 121
8.4 Splash Screen 122
8.5 About Information 124
8.5.1 Product About Information 124
8.5.2 Installation Details About Information 126
8.6 Summary 127
8.7 Pointers 127
Chapter 9 Packaging Hyperbola 129
9.1 Exporting Hyperbola 129
9.2 Exporting for Other Platforms 132
9.3 Summary 134
9.4 Pointers 135
Chapter 10 Messaging Support 137
10.1 Integrating a Third-Party Library 138
10.1.1 Bundling Smack 138
10.1.2 Testing the Bundling 141
10.2 Refactoring the Model 143
10.2.1 Introduction to Smack 144
10.2.2 Design Objectives 145
10.2.3 Deleting Prototype Classes 146
10.2.4 Adding Chats 147
Contents ix
10.3 Updating the UI 149
10.3.1 The Content Provider 150
10.3.2 The Label Provider 151
10.4 Chatting with Eliza 152
10.5 Summary 153
10.6 Pointers 154
Chapter 11 Adding a Login Dialog 155
11.1 Adding the Login Dialog 155
11.1.1 Branding the Dialog 159
11.2 Remembering Login Settings 161
11.2.1 The Basics 161
11.2.2 Using Preferences 164
11.2.3 Storing Preferences Securely 168
11.3 Adding Auto-login Preferences 170
11.3.1 Creating a Preference Page 170
11.3.2 Adding the Action 172
11.3.3 Accessing Preferences 173
11.3.4 Default Preference Values 173
11.3.5 Preferences on the Login Dialog 174
11.4 Summary 175
11.5 Pointers 175
Chapter 12 Adding Key Bindings 177
12.1 Defining Commands 177
12.2 Checkpoint 182
12.3 Adding Key Bindings for Workbench Actions 182
12.4 Key Schemes 184
12.5 Keys Preference Page 185
12.6 Summary 186
12.7 Pointers 186
Chapter 13 Adding Help 187
13.1 Adding to the Target Platform 187
13.1.1 Getting Plug-ins 188
13.1.2 Adding Plug-ins 188