L0043 - Interfacing to Eclipse Standard Views

Interfacing to Eclipse Standard Views

Eclipse contains a large number of standard views that can be extended
to support new languages or data models. This model focus on the
interface to the most common Eclipse views: Problems View, Outline
View, and the Properties View.

Redistribution and other use of this material requires written permission from The RCP Company.

L0001 - 2010-11-27

Problems View

The problems view is used to show resource markers, which can represent
anything(!), but normally are error conditions

Markers are installed on resources (IResource)
 The file of an editor is found via the editor input (IEditorInput) via
adaption
IFile res = (IFile)editor.getEditorInput().getAdapter(IFile.class);

 This only works for files in the workspace – not files opened via
“File”→”Open File…” – for the later the above construct returns null

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Markers (IMarker)

Markers are associated as detail data on resources (IResource)
Markers have a type, an unique ID (per resource) and a set of text attributes
New marker types are deﬁned with the org.eclipse.core.resources.markers extension point
 Each marker type has a name, a set of super-marker-types, a persistence and a set
of attributes
 The resulting new marker type will inherit all attributes from super-markertypes

Only persistent markers are saved between invocations
 A new marker type is non-persistent unless explicitly set

Basic marker types related to problems
 org.eclipse.core.resources.problemmarker – with attributes severity, message, and
location
 org.eclipse.core.resources.textmarker – with attributes charStart, charEnd,
lineNumber
All relevant marker related constants are deﬁned in IMarker
Makers can be grouped in the Problems View via support in the
org.eclipse.ui.ide.markerSupport extension point

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Creating a new Marker Type

The extension for a new marker type is special
 The id of the new marker type is speciﬁed directly in the extension and
not in a sub-element (like for views and perspectives)
 If no id is speciﬁed, the target Eclipse cannot start!!!

<extension id="problem" name=“My Personal Problem"
point="org.eclipse.core.resources.markers">
<super type="org.eclipse.core.resources.problemmarker" />
</extension>

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L0001 - 2010-11-27

Markers Manipulation

Markers are accessed using methods of IResource
 createMarker(type) – creates and returns a new marker of the specified
type
 findMarker(id) – find a specific marker
 deleteMarkers(type, includeSubtypes, depth) – deletes all markers of the
specified type
 …and many more…

Markers also has a large set of methods
 delete() – deletes the marker
 getType() – returns the type
 getAttribute(name) – returns the value of the attribute
 setAttribute(name, value) – sets the value of the attribute
 setAttributes(String[] attributeNames, Object[] values) – sets the values
of many attributes

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Working with Markers

To create a “problem” marker for a complete file, just use the following

try {
IFile file = myEditor.getFile();
IMarker marker = file.createMarker(IMarker.PROBLEM);
marker.setAttribute(IMarker.MESSAGE, "hello");
} catch (CoreException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}

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Lab Exercise

Add a new marker type for your problems
 Use problemmarker and textmarker as super-types

Create markers for all errors at the end of each parse
 Remember to delete old markers

Do they show up in the problems view?

Do you see annotations and squibbles in the editor?

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Outline View

The Outline view shows an outline of domain model of the current editor
 Requires a domain model has been built
 Has dependency on org.eclipse.ui.views

The content of the outline view is supplied by the active editor via adaption
to IContentOutlinePage
 Result should inherit from ContentOutlinePage
 Cache returned object as this method is called often

private IContentOutlinePage myContentOutlinePage = null;
@Override
public Object getAdapter(Class adapter) {
if (adapter == IContentOutlinePage.class) {
if (myContentOutlinePage == null) {
myContentOutlinePage = new NINEditorOutlinePage(this);
}
return myContentOutlinePage;
}
return super.getAdapter(adapter);
}

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L0001 - 2010-11-27

Outline of Outline Page

public class NINEditorOutlinePage extends ContentOutlinePage {
@Override
public void createControl(Composite parent) {
super.createControl(parent);
ﬁnal TreeViewer tree = getTreeViewer();
tree.setLabelProvider(new MyLabelProvider());
tree.setContentProvider(new MyContentProvider());
tree.setInput(new Object());
// Add listener on model, so tree can be refreshed when model is updated
}
private class MyLabelProvider extends LabelProvider { … }
private class MyContentProvider implements ITreeContentProvider { … }
}

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L0001 - 2010-11-27

Outline View Extras

To get popup menu
 Just install it in the tree – remember to register it

To synchronize view with editor navigation
 Add navigation tracker in the editor and let the view listen

To synchronize editor with selection in view
 Add selection listener in editor
 If current selection is a domain object of the editor, move to that
position

Use ITextViewer.revealRange(int offset, int length)

To add ﬁltering and sorting to view
 Extend ContentOutlinePage.setActionBars(IActionBars)

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Lab Exercise

Extend editor with support for outline view

Synchronize the editor with the current selection in the view

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Properties View

The Properties view shows properties of the current selection
 Requires a domain model as been built in editor
 Has dependency on org.eclipse.ui.views

A property source (IPropertySource) describes how the property view should
show the properties of an object

The content of the property view is supplied by the current selection via
inheritance from or adaption to IPropertySource
 Inherits from IPropertySource
 Implements IAdaptable.getAdapter(IPropertySource.class)

Can be accomplished via adapter factory

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L0001 - 2010-11-27

Implementation of Property Sources (IPropertySource)

A property source describes the supported properties using descriptors
(IPropertyDescriptor)
 A descriptor includes information about

name, description, help

optionally a label provider, how to create a property editor

If it can create a property editor, it is settable
 The platform includes a number of standard descriptors

PropertyDescriptor – read-only property

TextPropertyDescriptor – text based property

ColorPropertyDescriptor – color property

ComboBoxPropertyDescriptor – list based property

A property source can get and possibly set and reset property values

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Interesting Parts of Property Source

public class ExPropertySource implements IPropertySource {
… myObject;
public IPropertyDescriptor[] getPropertyDescriptors() {
return IPropertyDescriptor[] = { new TextPropertyDescriptor("name", "name") };
}
public Object getPropertyValue(Object id) {
if ("name".equals(id)) {
return myObject.getName();
} else {
return null;
}
}
public void setPropertyValue(Object id, Object value) {
if ("name".equals(id)) {
myObject.setName((String) value);
}
}
}

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Lab Exercise

Extend editor with support for properties view

Add support for setting the name in the domain model
 Use IDocument.replace(offset, length, text)

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More Information

“Mark My Words: Using markers to tell users about problems and tasks”
 http://www.eclipse.org/resources/resource.php?id=237

Somewhat basic article on markers

“Take control of your properties”

Good introduction with plenty of code examples

“The Eclipse Tabbed Properties View”

Introduction to the new tabbed properties view

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L0043 - Interfacing to Eclipse Standard Views

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