第一章简介

Addison Wesley:Eclipse Modeling Framework: A Developer's Guide

Chapter 1

This Chapter introduce some information about Eclipse Project. The development work in Eclipse is divided
intro three main Projects: The Eclipse Project, The Tools Project, and the Technology Project.

And the Eclipse Project include three subprojects: the Platform, the Java Development Tools(JDT), and the
plug-in Development Environment(PDE).Collectively, the three subprojects provide everything needed to
extend the framework and develop tools based on Eclipse.

The Tools Project defines and coordinates the integration of different sets or categories of tools based on
the Eclipse platform. and the Eclipse Technology Project provides an opportunity for researchers,
academics, and educators to become involved in the ongoing evolution of Eclipse.

Plug-In Architecture

The Eclipse platform is a framework for building IDE's. In Eclipse, a basic unit of function, or a component
is called a plug-in, The Eclipse platform itself and the tools that extend it are both composed of plug-ins. a
plug-in includes everything needed to run the component, such as Java code, images, translated text, and
the like. It also includes a manifest file, named plugin.xml, that declares the interconnections to other plug-
ins. When the Platform startup, the Eclipse Platform discovers all the available plug-ins and matches
extensions with their corresponding extension points. A plug-in, however, is only activated when its code
actually needs to run, avoiding a lengthy startup sequence. When activated, a plug-in is assigned its own
class loader, which provides and enforces the visibility declared in the manifest files.

Workspace Resources

A project is a special folder-type resource that maps to a user-specified folder in the underlying file
system. The subfolders of the project are the same as in the physical file system, but projects are top-level
folders in the user's virtual project container, called the workspace.

The UI Framework

The Eclipse UI Framework consists of two general-purpose toolkits, SWT and JFace, and a workbench UI
that defines the overall structure of an Eclipse IDE.

SWT (Standard Widget Toolkit) is an OS-independent widget set and graphics library, implemented using
native widgets wherever possible.

JFace is a higher-level toolkit, implemented using SWT. It provides classes to support common UI
programming tasks such as managing image and font registries, dialogs, wizards, progress monitors, and
so on. The JFace API does not hide SWT, but rather works with and expands on it.

Workbench

The workbench is the main window that the user sees when running Eclipse, It is itself implemented using
SWT and JFace.The main workbench window consists of an arrangement of views and editors, A standard
Navigator view displays workspace projects, folders, and files. Other views, some standard and others that
are tool specific, display information about a resource being edited or possibly the current selection in
another view.

An editor can be launched on a resource from the Navigator view. Eclipse editors work in the usual way,
but they are integrated into the workbench window instead of launched externally in their own window.
When activated, an editor will contribute its actions to the workbench's menus and toolbar.

The primary way to extend the Eclipse platform is using extension points provided by the workbench.
These extension points allow tools to add new editors, views, or perspectives to the workbench. Tools can
also customize existing editors, views, or perspectives for their own purposes.

We can visit the Eclipse Web site at www.eclipse.org , There will be find plenty of detailed information—
technical, organizational, and legal.