Eclipse Plug-in Development Beginner’s Guide, 2nd Edition

Key Features

• Create useful plug-ins to make Eclipse work for you
• Learn how to migrate Eclipse 3.x plug-ins to Eclipse 4.x
• From automation to testing, find out how to get your IDE performing at an impressive standard

Book Description

Eclipse is used by everyone from indie devs to NASA engineers. Its popularity is underpinned by its impressive plug-in ecosystem, which allows it to be extended to meet the needs of whoever is using it. This book shows you how to take full advantage of the Eclipse IDE by building your own useful plug-ins from start to finish.

Taking you through the complete process of plug-in development, from packaging to automated testing and deployment, this book is a direct route to quicker, cleaner Java development. It may be for beginners, but we’re confident that you’ll develop new skills quickly. Pretty soon you’ll feel like an expert, in complete control of your IDE.

Don’t let Eclipse define you – extend it with the plug-ins you need today for smarter, happier, and more effective development.

What you will learn

• Create plug-ins for Eclipse 4.x
• Test plug-ins automatically with JUnit
• Display tree and table information in views
• Upgrade Eclipse 3.x plug-ins to Eclipse 4.x
• Find out how to build user interfaces from SWT and JFace
• Run tasks in the background and update the user interface asynchronously
• Automate builds of plug-ins and features
• Automate user interface tests with SWTBot

About the Author

Dr Alex Blewitt has been developing Java applications since version 1.0 was released in 1996, and has been using the Eclipse platform since its first release as part of the IBM WebSphere Studio product suite. He got involved in the open source community as a tester when Eclipse 2.1 was being released for macOS, and then subsequently as an editor for EclipseZone, including being a finalist for Eclipse Ambassador in 2007. More recently, Alex has been writing for InfoQ, covering Java and specifically Eclipse and OSGi subjects.

He is co-founder of the Docklands.LJC, a regional branch of the London Java Community in the Docklands, and a regular speaker at conferences.

Alex currently works for an investment bank in London, and is a Director of Bandlem Limited. Alex blogs at https://alblue.bandlem.com and tweets as @alblue on Twitter, and is the author of both Mastering Eclipse 4 Plug-in Development, and Swift Essentials, both by Packt Publishing.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Creating Your First Plug-in
Chapter 2. Creating Views with SWT
Chapter 3. Creating JFace Viewers
Chapter 4. Interacting with the User
Chapter 5. Working with Preferences
Chapter 6. Working with Resources
Chapter 7. Creating Eclipse 4 Applications
Chapter 8. Migrating to Eclipse 4.x
Chapter 9. Styling Eclipse 4 Applications
Chapter 10. Creating Features, Update Sites, Applications, and Products
Chapter 11. Automated Testing of Plug-ins
Chapter 12. Automated Builds with Tycho
Chapter 13. Contributing to Eclipse
Chapter 14. Using OSGi Services to Dynamically Wire Applications
Chapter 15. Pop Quiz Answers