Eclipse RCP: Can I add a toolbar to an Editor Part? - eclipse-rcp

Question

I have succesfully managed to add view-specific toolbars to my RCP application by adding the following block to the org.eclipse.ui.menus extension point:
<menuContribution
allPopups="false"
locationURI="toolbar:my.package.path.views.ClassOfMyView">
<dynamic
class="my.package.path.toolbars.ViewToolBar"
id="MyViewToolbar">
</dynamic>
</menuContribution>
However, trying to do the same with my editorpart does not seem to work:
<menuContribution
allPopups="false"
locationURI="toolbar:my.package.path.views.ClassOfMyEditorPart">
<dynamic
class="my.package.path.toolbars.EditorPartToolBar"
id="MyEditorpartToolbar">
</dynamic>
</menuContribution>
Is there something obvious that I am missing, or is this simply not supported in RCP?

Answer 1

Following up on the hint about the Presentation API given by Tonny Madsen, I've come up with a solution to my problem. My solution is based on the following articles:
Eclipse RCP - Hide minimize / maximize buttons for editors and views (showing me how to supply my own presentation factory)
Incompatibilities between Eclipse 3.7 and 4.2 (helping me figure out why my presentation factory wasn't being used)
Custom RCP editor with the view header (helping me figure out how to make sure my presentation factory was being used)
To make my solution work, I ended up with changes in two files and a new class:
In the plugin.xml file, I added the following extension:
<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.presentationFactories">
<factory
name="Extended Presentation Factory"
class="org.eclipse.minicrm.ui.swt.custom.ExtendedPresentationFactory"
id="org.eclipse.minicrm.ui.swt.custom.ExtendedPresentationFactory"
/>
</extension>
This seems to be ignored by Eclipse 4.x, so to cater for those cases, I added the following line to the plugin_customisation.ini file:
org.eclipse.ui/presentationFactoryId = org.eclipse.minicrm.ui.swt.custom.ExtendedPresentationFactory
I then created the corresponding class:
import org.eclipse.jface.action.Action;
import org.eclipse.jface.action.ToolBarManager;
import org.eclipse.jface.resource.ImageDescriptor;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Composite;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.ToolBar;
import org.eclipse.ui.internal.presentations.util.TabbedStackPresentation;
import org.eclipse.ui.presentations.IStackPresentationSite;
import org.eclipse.ui.presentations.StackPresentation;
import org.eclipse.ui.presentations.WorkbenchPresentationFactory;
#SuppressWarnings("restriction")
public class ExtendedPresentationFactory extends WorkbenchPresentationFactory {
private ToolBarManager m_toolBarManager = null;
private ToolBar m_toolbar = null;
#Override
public StackPresentation createEditorPresentation(final Composite parent, final IStackPresentationSite site) {
final TabbedStackPresentation presentation = (TabbedStackPresentation) super.createViewPresentation(parent, site);
m_toolbar = new ToolBar(presentation.getTabFolder().getToolbarParent(), 0);
m_toolBarManager = new ToolBarManager(m_toolbar);
m_toolBarManager.add(new MyAction1());
m_toolBarManager.add(new MyAction2());
m_toolBarManager.add(new MyAction3());
m_toolBarManager.update(true);
presentation.getTabFolder().setToolbar(m_toolbar);
return presentation;
}
}
This adds a toolbar with three buttons to my editor area.
I will still need to fiddle with some of the finer points (placement etc), but for a start it satisfies my need for a toolbar in the editor area.

Answer 2

These are some important visual differences between editors and views:
Editors provide additional actions to the top-level menu and the tool bar; views do not*
Views have an independent menu bar and tool bar; editors do not
There are at most one active editor in a perspective; there can be any number of active views
The are at most one view of each “type”; there can be any number of editors*
Editors are all placed in the “editor area”; views are placed in a number of “view stacks”
Some of these differences (marked with * above) can be ironed out using various functionality of the RCP platform:
The interface ISaveblePart can give a view the same life-cycle as an editor.
The menues extension point can add items to the main menu and tool bar when a view is active.
The views extension point can be used to allow multiple views of the same type.
With Eclipse 4, you can also combine editors and views in the same stack or folder.
But adding a menu or tool bar as seen with views require more work! But it can be done using the Presentation API, where most of the visual difference can be ironed out.
One additional comment: It is not toolbar:my.package.path.views.ClassOfMyView but toolbar:id-of-the-view.