Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) Training

Introduction into Eclipse and Eclipse 4

• Components of the Eclipse platform
• Eclipse 3.x in comparison with Eclipse 4.x
• Eclipse license
• Internet information sources

Eclipse architecture

• Software components
• Configuration files (plugin.xml, MANIFEST.MF)
• Extensions and extension points
• Important user interface components

Deployment of an Eclipse product

• Product configuration file
• Feature projects
• Branding and product export
• Run configuration
• Problem analysis during export

Eclipse 4 application model

• Application model and model components
• Model editor
• Naming schema for ID's

Dependency injection and annotations

• Overview dependency injection
• Dependency injection framework in Eclipse
• Field, method and constructor dependency injection
• Behavior annotations
• Application lifecycle annotations

Commands, Handlers, Menus and Toolbars

• Contributing to the menu and the toolbar
• Handling of popup menus
• Scope of handlers and core expressions
• Defining keybindings

Scope of injection

• IEclipseContext
• Injection search strategy
• Creation of injectable objects
• Model elements and dependency injection

Modularity of the Eclipse platform with OSGi

• Plug-ins and bundles
• Definition of dependencies between plug-ins
• Fragment projects
• OSGi framework start configuration and usage of the OSGi console

OSGi services

• Services and the OSGi service registry
• Publishing services via OSGi declarative services
• Usage of services in Eclipse 4
• OSGi declarative service definition with annotations

User interface development with SWT

• Overview Standard Widget Toolkit
• SWT event handling
• SWT layout manager: FillLayout, RowLayout and GridLayout
• User interface builder: SWT Designer
• Custom widgets and Nebula widgets

Introduction JFace

• Overview JFace components
• SWT resource management
• Control decorations for user feedback
• Introduction into the Viewer framework (LabelProvider, ContentProvider, ComboViewer)
• Handling Viewer selection

JFace TableViewer and TreeViewer

• ColumnLabelProvider and CellLabelProvider
• Editable tables
• Sorting, filtering, layouts and own label provider

Dialog and Wizards

• SWT standard dialogs
• JFace Dialogs
• JFace Wizards

Declarative styling with CSS

• Introduction into CSS
• Definition of styles and themes, colors and gradients
• Styling specific widgets
• Dynamic style switching at runtime
• Using the CSS Spy tooling

Platform services and interaction of components

• Service overview
• Part service
• Model service
• Selection service
• Command and Handler service

Editor handling in Eclipse 4

• Comparison Views and Editors
• Getting parts which behave as editors
• Using services to interact with parts

Accessing and extending the Eclipse context

• Accessing the context
• Extending the Eclipse context with own objects
• Using dependency injection to create own objects

Settings and preferences

• Configuration area and workspace
• Persistence of the Eclipse application
• Part persistence
• Dependency injection for preference values

Modularity for Eclipse 4 applications

• Contributing to the application model
• Static model contributions with fragments
• Dynamic model contributions with processors

Internationalization (i18n)

• Adding support for multiple languages
• Usage of fragment projects
• Outlook: translation services in Eclipse 4

Concurrent UIs

• SWT threading
• Avoiding invalid thread access
• Asynchronous processing with the Eclipse API

JFace Data Binding

• Introduction into databinding
• Observing properties
• Conversion, validation and update strategies
• Databinding for JFace Viewers
• Master / detail bindings

Target Platform

• Definition of development components
• Creation of target platform definitions

Migrating Eclipse 3.x applications

• Running Eclipse 3.x applications on top of Eclipse 4
• Mixing Eclipse 3.x and Eclipse 4.x components
• Discussion: Migration path for existing applications

Definition of own annotations for dependency injection

• Definition of new annotations
• Evaluation of new annotations
• Use cases

Creating and evaluating extension points

• Eclipse extensions and extension points
• Accessing existing extensions
• Creating and evaluating a new extension point

The Renderer framework

• Purpose of the Renderer framework
• Define your own renderer
• Outlook: Using an alternative renderer
• Outlook: Extending the application model

Building Eclipse applications with Maven

• High level overview of Tycho
• Building plug-ins, features, products and update sites
• Executing plug-in unit tests with Tycho

Best practices and tips & tricks