It is possible to build at run time a swing gui directly from a NetBeans .form file? Someting like one can do with xml files generated by Glade to build GTK GUIs or with QtDesigner for Qt GUIs.
Possible? Maybe. Netbeans can recreate .java files from .form files and since Netbeans is open source, something could be done, in theory.
In reality, I have not seen this functionality and I don't think it would be easy to accomplish. Some obstacles that come to my head are:
One must keep in mind that .form files don't preserve information about Java code that controls the behaviour of the interface, (Loading information, Listener's definition and such).
In the default usage of Netbeans GUI builder, components are private to the frame/dialog that cointains them. If we want to handle those componente from outside, the default .form -> .java creation would have to be altered.
Netbeans source code is huge and I would not expect it to be easy to split the required module.
Alternative
I'd take a look at JavaFX and the Java FX Scene Builder to see if they fit your requirements since they have been created with the idea of splitting UI definition and logic.
Related
I want to create a plugin for Eclipse that allows me to edit a file in a graphical way. Parsing and saving the file is no problem, but I can't seem to figure out the simplest way of designing an editor in Eclipse. I guess this must be super easy, but I can only find complex examples when googling, and no simple solution for quickly sticking together a GUI as an editor (I don't want to define an entire EMF model etc. for this simple task).
The editor should only have a few simple lists and add and delete button to edit these lists. In should open when I double click the file with the appropriate file ending.
Questions:
In RCP4 required for this or just a normal editor plugin?
In started of with the normal editor plugin generated by the Wizard that provides a XMLEditor. What is the recommend way for adding these simple model editing elements (lists)?
I'm working on a similar editor using Window Builder, Forms, and EMF JFace data bindings.
It is not that complex, but I wouldn't call it simple either. Or, put it differently - it is all simple once you know how it works, but you'll have to invest some time in gaining that knowledge.
Some links which should help you get started:
https://eclipse.org/windowbuilder/
http://blog.vogella.com/2016/06/14/helping-windowbuilder/ - WindowBuilder for Neon
http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/EclipseDataBindingEMF/article.html
http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/EclipseDataBinding/article.html
https://tomsondev.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/emf-databinding.pdf
https://wiki.eclipse.org/JFace_Data_Binding
https://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-Forms/article.html
I have a cup of source files in a certain folder structure in my file system. I want to use this structure for a project in the IAR Workbench. Thinking of Eclipse, that could be so easy! But in the IAR Workbench, the folders will become to "Groups", which are only kind of virtual folders. The Workbench doesn't care about folders.
Is there some easy and fast way to import them?
Up to now I have to add the groups manually each and then add the files to the groups, and that's really annoying!
Is there maybe a tool to generate a proper project file (*.ewp) out of a file/folder structure path?
This would help me a lot!
You should have a look at IAR Project/Add Project Connection command.
Although IAR doesn't seem to have any public documentation on the xml syntax, or at least I couldn't find any, you can find Infineon DAVE (Config.xml) and Freescale PE (ProjectInfo.xml) files if you search around. These can be used as examples to figure out the syntax on how to write your own xml files in one of these interfaces, to allow you to specify where all your c, h, assembly and library files are from where ever they may be in your file system. They also allow you to define preprocessor includes for compiler/assembler, and DAVE allows you to define a path variable, which is also very useful.
See: https://mcuoneclipse.com/2013/11/01/iar-arm-v6-7-comes-with-improved-processor-expert-support/
I have modified a DAVE Config.xml file and found it EXTREMELY useful for managing and migrating even just a handful of project files. For example to upgrade to a new release with all files having a new directory root, you just change a single line in the xml file (defining the new root), and all source files, compiler includes etc are all updated to the new level. No more manually editing the preprocessor includes or replacing all the files in the project. And no more fiddling around with ../../ file system hierarchy navigation stuff, you just specify directly (or indirectly via a path to) where the files are, no more relative from where your project happens to be. VERY NICE.
IAR should consider opening this up (documenting) for general users, as it is very useful for project management and migration. While at it they should also consider generalizing the xml syntax a little bit and allow for definition of IAR group heading names, specifying linker file name, and definitely allowing multiple xml files to be included (connected) (so that subprojects can be easily added or removed without effecting the other subproject definition files) and a few basic things like that.
If they where to do a bang up job on this, they might consider allowing most/all aspects of IAR project configuration that might be required by the subproject, to be defined in these xml files, and then entire (sub)projects could just be plopped down anywhere and be up an running extremely quickly (OK, just let me dream a bit :)
For anyone who happens upon this you may want to check out https://github.com/IARSystems/project-migration-tools. They have a tool for pulling in file trees here.
Please anyone help me understand and use IDE.openEditor(IWorkbenchPage, IFile).
I have a resource file (xml format), it contains my model objects. I'm writing a wizard to create it, save it into workspace, view it inside a tree view (I use CommonNavigator) and open it in an editor. I need to know the control flow of this all. How to map between resource file and model objects, how the navigator can show that objects and how to open editor that associated with my resource file.
I'm sorry, I'm a newbie in Eclipse field. I know I need too much, but please give me at least an idea.
Thanks a lot.
A great character once said... "You have much to learn young padawan".
Here's a great place to start your journey though the basics of Eclipse plug-in / RCP development...
http://www.vogella.com/eclipse.html
If you really want to get down and dirty into the bowels of Eclipse, you can use Eclipse itself to teach you the dirty details about what's really going on.
Figure out how to view Eclipse source code inside of Eclipse.
Set break points at interesting points in Eclipse source code that you want to know more about.
Use the 'Eclipse Application' run configuration to run an instance of Eclipse from within your main Eclipse.
Use your newly launched Eclipse to preform the tasks you want to mimic and hopefully, you'll hit one of your break points and see how the Eclipse developers did what you want to do.
Background
I'm a developer of the Vrapper project.
Vrapper contains of 2 major parts
Vim-emulation library (vrapper.core)
Eclipse part that makes a good use of it
We want vrapper.core to be Eclipse-unaware, so it's reusable
outside of the Eclipse. Currently, we can "vrap" all sorts of Eclipse
text editors and our little mock text editor that we use for unit testing.
vrapper.core implements all sorts of Vim commands, modes, etc.
Those all communicate with Platform - an interface that abstracts out
underlying stuff (text editor, clipboards, settings system, etc.).
When mode is created for an editor it asks platform if there are extra
commands that are approperiate for underlying editor, currently edited file type, etc.
EclipsePlatform provides those commands using Eclipse extension points mechanism.
So, let's consider the following projects (there are more):
vrapper.core - Eclipse-independent code for Vrapper
vrapper.eclipse - Eclipse plug-in that depends on vrapper.core
surround.core - Eclipse-independent code that emulates surround.vim (Vim plug-in)
surround.eclipse - Eclipse fragment for vrapper.eclipse
that makes it provide commands form surround.core.
There are two ways we can deal with those:
One plug-in to rule them all
This is how it should look like from Eclipse's perspective.
There is one plug-in that contains code from vrapper.eclipse and vrapper.core,
and one fragment that contains code from surround.core and surround.eclipse.
Many plug-ins
There are 3 plug-ins
two OSGified libraries vrapper.core, surround.core
vrapper.eclipse
surround.eclipse fragment depends on vrapper.core in this case
Problems
Many plug-ins solution have some issues with lazy class loading that I don't understand.
It's beacause when instances of modes from vrapper.core are created they need
classes from surround.core to be created (via vrapper.eclipse -> surround.eclipse).
This works if you run stuff from Eclipse and select all plug-ins from run configuration,
but if one deploys features & plugins and run eclipse normally an exception is thrown
because classes from surround.core cannot be found.
It's something in the spirit of surround.core asking for extra commands from
dependent plug-ins creates implicit circular dependencies.
What I mean by implicit dependencies is that no core class depends on eclipse-specific classes in compile time.
Modes (like vim normal mode) are core classes. They contain commands. There are some commands specific for particular Eclipse editors (like run this JDT-specific refactoring). Those commands implement core interfaces, but their code (obviously) lives in eclipse-specific projects. When mode is created it asks underlying platform for some extra commands - those extra commands are implemented in eclipse plug-ins. This is when lazy class loading in eclipse make everything blow up in runtime - classes for extra commands are referenced by extension points, but they are not yet loaded. Boom, exception.
I tried to work this around by using "one plug-in to rule them all" approach.
Having just one plug-in seems to be much better solution to me, but I couldn't make it work cleanly.
Only thing that succeeded for me was quite an ugly hack.
All .core projects had an Ant task that created .jar file with their classes
and dropped it into corresponding *.eclipse project
*.eclipse projects included that jars and had them enlisted in MANIFEST files.
The problem with this ugly hack approach (besides of it being ugly hack) is
that development becomes quite painful. Eclipse code navigation, code coverage
and few other things in Eclipse stops working.
Summary
We have eclipse independent library + eclipse specific stuff architecture,
but we really need all of this to live in one plug-in (because there are some dependencies in both directions).
How do I make code from few projects live into one plug-in/fragment?
It turned out that adding Eclipse-BuddyPolicy: dependent to MANIFEST.MF files, reexporting some dependencies and turning one fragment into plugin (so there is plug-in dependency for BuddyPolicy to track) was the right solution.
Problem solved :-)
From reading this it sounds as if the actual problem is the fact that there are dependencies in both directions. Can't you refactor your projects to make only the Eclipse-spcific proejcts depend on the core projects, and not the other way around?
Being really new to wx, I'm wondering if there is an IDE (especially for Linux) which would help me lay out a frame or dialog or whatever just to help me see what I'm doing. That means also creating the code for those changes.
I remember way back when using resource compilers for OS/2 and Windows that produced binaries that would then create the window, and was hoping for something similar (though obviously not binary if wx doesn't support that).
I use wxFormBuilder. It is written in wxWidgets, so it works on Linux quite well. It can generate C++ code or XRC files. Make sure you understand its philosophy, and use it like this:
generate C++ code for the GUI
don't edit the code wxFormBuilder generated, but create new files
in new files, derive new classes from the classes it generated
implement event handlers in you own class (wxFB creates virtual function for each event handler you wish to use)
I usually name the wxFormBuilder generated classes/files like, for example, MainFrameGUI, and one with implementation (derived one in which I write all my code) would be just MainFrame. This enables you to change the visual layout and regenerate C++ files from wxFB at any time without overwriting your code.
DialogBlocks works quite well for me, although sometimes you need to edit the code to fix errors manually. It has a property editor that seems advanced enough.
Just another options is wxGlade. It does not have the that much features as the others mentioned seem to have, but it works just good enough for me to not daring to switch.
I use Code::Blocks IDE from http://www.codeblocks.org which has
- built-in GUI editor
- Cross compilable, so you can use it under Linux, OSX and Windows.
But I still use wxFormBuilder with it instead of built-in wxSmith editor. But they are compatible with internal wxSmith.
For windows you've got "wx-devcpp" which is Blodsheed Dev C++ with some addons providing what you looking for
Here is project page
http://wxdsgn.sourceforge.net/