Eclipse RCP Address Book

Address Book is an example application for the Eclipse RCP platform. I’m working on it for my online book about Eclipse RCP (in German) and my Eclipse RCP training courses (in German).

• Browse sources
• Download source zip

Screenshot

Project setup

• Use Eclipse IDE for RCP/Plug-in developers version 3.5 or 3.6.

• Download the latest source zip or clone the git repository:

  git clone git://github.com/ralfebert/addressbook.git

• Import all projects into a fresh workspace using File > Import > Existing Projects into workspace.

• Open com.example.addressbook.site/rcp.target, wait till the dependencies are resolved and click Set as target platform. All compile errors should disappear now. If not, restart Eclipse and repeat this step.

• Run com.example.addressbook/Addressbook.launch to launch the application.

• Run com.example.addressbook.uitests/AddressBookUITests.launch to run the UI test suite.

This example shows…

• How views are declared using the extension point org.eclipse.ui.views (see plugin.xml and AddressListViewPart in com.example.addressbook).
• How perspectives are declared using the extension point org.eclipse.ui.perspectives and how views are added to perspectives programmatically (see plugin.xml and AddressPerspective in com.example.addressbook).
• How TableViewer and TableColumnLayout can be used to set up tables (see AddressListViewPart in com.example.addressbook).
• How a JFace TableViewer can be sorted and filtered by typing a search string in a text field (see AddressListViewPart in com.example.addressbook).
• How the extension point org.eclipse.ui.menus can be utilized to add workbench commands to the menu and toolbar (see plugin.xml and ApplicationActionBarAdvisor in com.example.addressbook)
• How a handler for general-purpose commands is declared by selection (see AddressDeleteHandler for command org.eclipse.ui.edit.delete in com.example.addressbook)
• How a handler for general-purpose commands is declared for a view by id (see AddressListRefreshHandler for command org.eclipse.ui.file.refresh in com.example.addressbook)
• How a context menu can be created and extended using the extension point org.eclipse.ui.menus (see AddressListViewPart in com.example.addressbook and ContextMenu in rcputils)
• How JFace selections can be iterated using Java 5 foreach loops (see AddressDeleteHandler in com.example.addressbook and SelectionUtils in rcputils)
• How resources can be managed using ResourceManager and automatically disposed when a parent composite is disposed (see AddressListViewPart in com.example.addressbook).
• How applications can be translated using the Eclipse NLS mechanism (see ÀddressBookMessages in com.example.addressbook).
• How packages can be structured to keep implementation classes internal and how workbench ids, messages and resources like images might be shared (see com.example.addressbook.internal and com.example.addressbook packages in com.example.addressbook)
• How an OSGi service can be registered and used in a RCP application. The application utilizes a very simple AddressService which resembles how a service might look in a real application. Here, it just provides fake data (see com.example.addressbook.services).
• How custom listeners can be used in services to decouple workbench parts (see AddressChangeListener in com.example.addressbook.services and usage in AddressListViewPart).
• How OSGi services can be injected into view, editor and handler objects using the Eclipse Riena Core Wire mechanism (see AddressBookListView in com.example.addressbook and de.ralfebert.rcputils.wired).
• How plug-ins are used to extend RCP applications: All editing functionality is provided as a separate bundle com.example.addressbook.editing and is completely optional.
• How editors are declared (see plugin.xml in com.example.addressbook.editing) and implemented with load, change and save functionality. This also demonstrates how editor implementations might be simplified using abstract base classes (see AddressIdEditorInput, AddressEditorPart and WiredModelDataBindingEditorPart).
• How editors are opened from a command (see OpenAddressEditorHandler in com.example.addressbook.editing)
• How own commands are declared and implemented using a handler (see plugin.xml in com.example.addressbook).
• How simple forms can be layouted using SWT GridLayout (see AddressEditorPart in com.example.addressbook.editing).
• How applications and feature-based products are declared using the extension points org.eclipse.core.runtime.applications and org.eclipse.core.runtime.products for RCP applications (see plugin.xml, addressbook.product in com.example.addressbook and com.example.addressbook.feature)
• How to brand a RCP product with custom images (see addressbook.product)
• How JFace Data Binding can be utilized to bind forms to model objects (see AddressEditorPart#onBind).
• How Jobs and UIJobs can be utilized and simplified to load images without blocking the application (see AddressEditorPart and de.ralfebert.rcputils.concurrent)
• How validators can be added to the binding and how controls are decorated when validation errors occur using the provisional ControlDecorationSupport (see AddressEditorPart#onBind and ZipValidator).
• How the dirty flag for an editor can be set automatically from a DataBindingContext (see AddressEditorPart).
• How themes can be used to customize the colors of the Eclipse workbench (see plugin.xml in com.example.addressbook)
• How to setup a target platform to fetch features and bundles from different repositories (see rcp.target in com.example.addressbook.site).
• How RCP projects can be built headless using Eclipse Buckminster (see com.example.addressbook.site for the build configuration).

License

Licensed under Eclipse Public License - v1.0