RC0604 - Development of Eclipse Plug-ins

Goal

To be able to write Eclipse plug-ins

Duration

3 days

Prerequisites

Content

  • The architecture of the Eclipse platform. This is a basic walk-through of all the central concepts of the Eclipse platform and how these fit together. This includes the following concepts: the OSGi framework, Eclipse plug-ins, features, products and fragments, extension points and the start-up sequence.
  • The structure of an Eclipse plug-in. This is a detailed description of the different parts that makes up an Eclipse plug-in. The lesson focuses on the purpose of the different files of a plug-in such plugin.xml and the OSGi manifest files. The lesson also describes how plug-in are developed in Eclipse with PDE, the Plug-in Development Environment.
  • Launching and Debugging Eclipse plug-ins. This is a description of how a plug-in based application is launched in Eclipse and the different ways a plug-in can be debugged in Eclipse. Some of the topics are how to trace the operations of an Eclipse application including description of some of the OSGi features that can be used for tracing.
  • SWT, Jface and the Workbench. The graphical component of the Eclipse platform is SWT, the Standard Widget Toolkit. On top of this are an architecture independent modeling layer, Jface, and then the Eclipse workbench. This lesson describes how the work of the Eclipse platform is divided between the three components and how different resources must be managed. Lastly there are discussion of why SWT is used in Eclipse and not Swing and what consequences this fact has on the platform and development of plug-ins.
  • Core Eclipse Sub-systems. This is a walk-through of the basic services and APIs of the Eclipse platform. The focus is on the Runtime platform, the Resource framework and the IDE services. These services are essential to nearly all plug-in work.
  • Interaction with the Workbench. This is a description of how a plug-in can interact with the workbench. The lesson describes editors, views, commands and actions, and menus.
  • More Interaction with the Workbench. This lesson continues the previous lesson and focus on perspectives, preferences and properties, dialogs, and wizards.
  • Making extension points. The interaction between in Eclipse is primary via the extension point concept. The lesson describes how extension points are developed and used. It includes a description of the main design patterns that has been used throughout the Eclipse platform and a list of some of the most common pitfalls one is facing when defining extension points.
  • Updating Plug-ins. In order to deploy a set of plug-ins, these must be installed on the client machine. This lesson describes how this is done. The lesson describes all the important concepts - like features, fragments and the update manager - with a focus on the end-product.

Style

The course is a mixture of theory and practice and is divided into a number of lessons. Each lesson contains

  • A detailed theoretical walk-though of all the concepts and terms of the lesson.
  • A practical case where the gained knowledge from the subject is used.
  • A list of sources for additional information on the subject of the lesson.