Using an EditorPart inside a Composite - swt

Question

I'm new to RCP and I'm trying to create a new View or Editor. At the current state I'm extending ViewPart.
The Layout I want to achieve is a SashForm where both sides have a CTabFolder. One of the sides of the SashForm is basically a MultiPageEditorPart. One of it's tabs should be an editor for a specific language with syntax highlighting and similar features. From what I understand I could extend AbstractTextEditor for that (and maybe use it as one tab of a MultiPageEditorPart).
If I try to achieve this layout with a ViewPart as top level container which contains a SashForm, I can't add an EditorPart to one of the sides of the SashForm. Of course I could implement this editor from scratch as Composite but I want to avoid that.
I am also willing to use an EditorPart or MultiPageEditorPart as top level container but then I'd have to find a way to get the SashForm layout working. The whole editor should be splited first and then each side should have tabs.
Does anyone have an idea how to solve this?
If anything is unclear please ask. I've got the feeling I've put this into words a little complicatedly.

Answer 1

I think you should just make a ViewPart that has a text editing component of some kind on the left, instead of trying to find a way to use an EditorPart. All that EditorPart is really buying you is dirty flag management and Save support; syntax highlight and so forth you can add to the text editing component yourself (I was surprised at how few drop-in text components I found while poking around the internet just now; I expected to find "a few" and instead I found "basically none").
You can see one way to do very rudimentary syntax highlighting with a StyledText component here: JavaSourceCodeViewer
To see a more robust implementation of things like syntax highlight and autocomplete, take a look at the class that Eclipse uses for the editing of Java source code: CompilationUnitEditor

Answer 2

I think what you are trying to achieve is quite complicated and might require a lot of extra work. See an editor is not just different controls laid out in some order, but it has a lot of additional features that any editor class expects to work. These include things like selection service and action bars etc, that you will need to hook in to ensure smooth running.
That said, it should be possible to achieve what you are hoping for. You can have a look at the source code of the MultiPageEditorPart itself to see how it converts a single editor into a multi page editor, which is capable of hosting a completely independent editor on each of its pages. You would need to achieve something similar if you want your editor to host two MultiPageEditorParts separated by a sash. If you want to carry on, you should start implementing some stuff and if you run into any problems, post them here. You would be able to get a lot better help then.

Answer 3

You need something like MultiPageEditorSite. Use it for inspiration when implementing an EditorSiteDelegate. MultiPageEditorSite has support for separate keybindings between the pages, for example.
class ChildEditorSite implements IEditorSite {
IEditorSite parent;
public Object method() {
return parent.method();
}
}
Using this class, you can easily do the following in your main EditorPart:
class MyCoolPart extends EditorPart {
public void createControl(Composite parent) {
EditorPart child1 = new MyChild();
child1.init(new ChildEditorSite(getEditorSite()), myInput);
EditorPart child2 = new MyChild();
child2.init(new ChildEditorSite(getEditorSite()), myInput);
child1.createPartControl(parent);
child2.createPartControl(parent);
}
}
Be sure to also dispose of your children correctly when you dispose of your MyCoolPart. Please note that this only works in the most basic of cases. An EditorPart that is a DocumentEditor or that relies on IPersistablePart or implements listeners/adapters for confirming a save is probably going to require a lot more Lifecycle management...