I'm using Netbeans. When I create a Java class, I sometimes want to change it to be a GUI component so that I can visually edit it using the GUI Builder.
What is the necessary step to transform a regular Java class to a GUI component so that Netbeans would recognize it and allow me to use GUI Builder ? (i.e. switch between Source and Design)
NetBeans' Gui builder, Matisse, works off a .form xml file located adjacent to the source file. Matisse creates and maintains the .form file and the code generator creates/updates methods in the java source to reflect changes to the form.
Unfortunately, there is no support in NetBeans for free-form GUI construction.
The closest I've seen is FormGenerator. It's a contributed NetBeans module that adds a right click action to .java files that will attempt to generate a .form file from the .java source. It's very limited, but it's better than nothing. It works best if you've followed the coding style employed by Matisse.
http://netbeans.org/projects/contrib/downloads/download/Readme.txt
http://netbeans.org/projects/contrib/downloads/download/FormGeneratorModule.zip
To add a class to the Palette, all that's needed is for your class to conform to the Java Beans model. That is, your class must:
be serializable
have a public, no-argument constructor.
All fields that have getter and setter methods that are named properly, i.e.:
int count
int getCount()
void setCount(int c)
should by default be recognized as a property.
For a finer control of what properties should and should not be exposed to the GUI Builder, you can associate your class with an implementation of the BeanInfo interface. See this Sun tutorial for more details.
However, NetBeans has several tools to help you in designing a custom bean. You can create new beans using the built-in templates available in the new file dialog, under the "JavaBeans Objects" folder.
This tutorial will guide you through creating an Image Bean.
What you could do is create one from scratch, design it as you wish, and then look at the generated code to understand how you can modify your existing class.
Try to use properties (Java bean!) for properties which should be changed from the ui designer and look here for more info.
Related
I am trying to create a plugin which monitors the change in a document.
I am interested in adding a marker in the text editor when the document is changed.
I observed that for the class - IDocumentListener the method documentChanged is getting called whenever there is a change.
However, I am unable to implement this as plugin as this interface does not have an extension point.
Can you help me with extending IDocumentListener ?
It's instructive to look at an existing open-source plugin to see how it does a similar task. Let's look at Bracketeer as an example.
The starting point is a class that implements org.eclipse.core.runtime.Plugin. For plugins that have a UI, it's useful to implement org.eclipse.ui.plugin.AbstractUIPlugin which provides additional functionality. This class is commonly called the "activator", and indeed in Bracketeer it's called Activator. It's registered as the plugin's activator class in the MANIFEST.MF file using a line like:
Bundle-Activator: com.chookapp.org.bracketeer.Activator
The Activator class overrides Plugin.start(), which will be called by the runtime when the plugin is loaded. The overridden start() method sets up a part listener.
The part listener is a class that implements the IPartListener2 interface. In Bracketeer, it's called PartListener. On setup, it calls PlatformUI.getWorkbench() to get a hold of the IWorkbench, and IWorkbench.getWorkbenchWindows() to get a list of currently open windows (at the time the plugin starts). It then registers itself with each window via IWorkbenchWindow.getPartService().addPartListener().
In addition, to handle new windows being opened after the plugin is loaded, PartListener also implements IWindowListener, and registers itself as a window listener via IWorkbench.addWindowListener(). This allows the PartListener to handle new windows opening by overriding IWindowListener.windowOpened(), and register itself as a part listener for the new windows.
As a part listener, PartListener overrides IPartListener2.partActivated() and partOpened() to handle workbench parts (which include editors) being opened or activated. In those methods, it checks whether the part is an IEditorPart; if so, it gets a hold of the editor part's document (see PartListener.getPartDocument()), which is an IDocument.
Finally, having an IDocument, it can register any IDocumentListener it wants via IDocument.addDocumentListener(IDocumentListener).
(There are some details I'm glossing over, such as manually calling partActivated() for every workbench part that's already open at the time the plugin is started. See the Bracketeer code for the full details.)
All of these are public APIs, and none of this requires any extension point to be implemented.
I have a DSL written in Xtext. In order to add custom content proposal, I have edited the MyDslProposalProvider class in the ui project. The new proposals are present when I debug the plugin in Eclipse, but not in the web editor, which is ultimately what I want. I want to set the custom proposals at a single place and all generated editors to use them. Is it possible to do that with Xtext?
As I had the same problem and struggled a little bit with the solution (as I would like to use both, Eclipse editor and Web editor) I would like to provide some more detailed feedback on a possible solution here, which worked well for me.
In my solution I did the following steps.
Implement a MyDslIdeContentProposalProvider in my.dsl.ide sub project extending from IdeContentProposalProvider, package my.dsl.ide.contentassistant (newly created); an example of such an implementation may be found here.
The implementation is not such convenient as at the well known UI proposal provider for Eclipse. I had to implement switch cases based on MyDslGrammarAccess elements instead of structural grammar elements like in the UI proposal provider. On the other hand, I have only one proposal implementation for all editor cases that way (DRY principle!).
Register the MyDslIdeContentProposalProvider at MyDslIdeModule in the same project (only with that it works already in the web editor).
def Class<? extends IdeContentProposalProvider> bindIdeContentProposalProvider() {
MyDslIdeContentProposalProvider
}
Register the new MyDslIdeContentProposalProvider and the forwarding class UiToIdeContentProposalProvider at the MyDslUiModule in the my.dsl.ui sub project. (That's what took the longest investigation as it cannot be logically derived.)
override Class<? extends IContentProposalProvider> bindIContentProposalProvider() {
return UiToIdeContentProposalProvider
}
def Class<? extends IdeContentProposalProvider> bindIdeContentProposalProvider() {
return JavaPOSConfigLanguageIdeContentProposalProvider
}
For an full example see here.
As I had implemented the MyDslIdeContentProposalProvider in the newly created package my.dsl.ide.contentassistant, this package has to be exported in the MANIFEST.MF file of the sub project my.dsl.ide (the subsequent 2 exports were already there). Otherwise i would get an an error Access restriction: The type is not accessible due to restriction on required project in the MyDslUiModule.
Export-Package: my.dsl.ide.contentassist,
my.dsl.ide.contentassist.antlr,
my.dsl.ide.contentassist.antlr.internal
That way it worked well for for both editors, Eclipse and web.
Thanks Christian again for the initial hint!
... If I could make a wish, I would like to have the same structural grammar element access in the MyDslIdeContentProposalProvider as we have it today in UI proposal provider.
you need to subclass org.eclipse.xtext.ide.editor.contentassist.IdeContentProposalProvider and bind it in YourDslIdeModule and YourDslUiModule. Then (in Xtext 2.13) you can use org.eclipse.xtext.ui.editor.contentassist.UiToIdeContentProposalProvider bound in YourDslUiModule to delegate to that in eclipse ui.
We have an Eclipse IDE application on 3.x that uses various newWizards to allow the user to create different files. Although these files differ slightly contentwise, the structure of the wizards is quite similar.
Thus, a sound object-oriented approach would be to instantiate different wizards from the same class and initialize them with different data.
Problem:
To decide what wizard needs which data we need a way to distinguish the different already instantiated wizards (e.g during the call to the init method of the wizard).
Is there any way to do so? It would e.g. help if somebody knows a way to get the wizard's id defined in the extension point from within the instantiated wizard.
If your wizard implements IExecutableExtension, it will be passed the configuration element that represents the extension for which it is created.
You can also use extension factories in that you specify a type that implements IExecutableExtensionFactory.
The interface allows you to control how the instances provided to extension-points (wizards in your case) are created.
Extension example:
<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.wizards">
<newWizard
name="..."
class="com.example.WizardFactory">
</newWizard>
Note that the extension factory may also implement IExecutableExtension to gain access to extension attributes before creating the extension's executable class.
Using application.e4xmi, I want to create view via fragments using this application model. Could you please tell me the step by step procedure.
what i have tried is, i have created one fragment in the one plugin application. in that i have given application id after that i have created part stack and after that created part. Here i have given class URI is my view class(path of view class in the viewplugin project). But without that view plugin in the runconfigurations, i am unable to see view part.
As far as I understand your question, you wish to have a plugin containing a model fragment which contributes to an application model located in another plugin, and the problem is that a (View-)Part you tried to contribute that way doesn't show in the application window. I hope I didn't get you wrong there and I will assume that the error is not just that the plugin with the model fragment is not included in the run configurations... (?)
You can find a useful tutorial in Lars Vogel's webpages. However, as the various requirements may be confusing, I will summarize the process for potential future readers.
TL;DR:
You might have set a wrong Element ID and/or Featurename for your Part.
Your question implies that you maybe tried to implement a Part model element as a ViewPart, when in E4, there is no longer any interface for a (View) Part to implement, so maybe try creating the Part controls in a #PostConstruct-annotated method instead.
Another possible reason for your contributed Part not showing up is the plugin providing the model fragment not having the correct settings for the bundle options SymbolicName and/or ActivationPolicy ('Plug-in is singleton' and 'Activate when class is loaded').
Application
In order to have an application model to contribute to, we first need an Eclipse4 application project. Create one by selecting File -> New -> Other from the Eclipse main menu. Choose the wizard Eclipse 4 Application Project in the Eclipse 4 category. Name your project as you wish, choose Equinox as OSGI framework, and check the Generate an Activator... option. The newly created project will contain a file Application.e4xmi (your application model) and a *.product file (product definition). Open the latter in and make sure org.eclipse.e4.ui.workbench.swt.E4Application is set as Application in the Overview tab.
Open Application.e4xmi and append a Part Stack somewhere in the model tree, as you probably have already done anyways.
Model fragment
Create a new plugin for the model fragment. Letting it have an Activator class won't harm. It is important, however, that the options Activate this plug-in when one of its classes is loaded and This plug-in is a singleton are both checked in the Overview tab of its plugin.xml editor. Next, create a model fragment with New -> Other... -> Eclipse 4 -> Model -> New Model Fragment in the plugin's Package Explorer context menu. The wizard will automatically create an extension of org.bbaw.bts.ui.pdr.fragment specifying your model fragment file. The plugin's dependencies should include:
org.eclipse.swt
org.eclipse.jface
org.eclipse.e4.core.di
org.eclipse.e4.ui.workbench
javax.inject
org.eclipse.e4.ui.di
Open the model fragment file (fragment.e4xmi by default) and attach a Model Fragment to the Model Fragments node. Your new Model Fragment element needs to specify both an Element ID and a Featurename in order to correctly address the Application Model's element that you want to contribute to. Thus, copy the ID of the Part Stack previously created in the Application Model into the Element ID field of the Model Fragment you've just created. In the Featurename field, type children, as this is the Part stack's attribute we want to contribute to. Then, append a Part to the Model Fragment element and specify the Class URI of the Part's implementation. This class is basically a POJO, no implementation of ViewPart is necessary! It creates its GUI in a method annotated with the #PostConstruct annotation, e.g.
#PostConstruct
public final void createComposite(final Composite parent)
That should be it. When running the application project's product, the Part should appear like expected (given the plugin containing that Part is included in the run configuration...).
I'm working on a GWT project and I find it very tedious to have to add a function to my servlet, then copy and paste the function signature into my Service interface, then copy and paste it into my ServiceAsync interface and change the return parameter to be a callback. Is there a tool or a setting where I can just add public methods to my class and they can get copied into the other interfaces? Even if its not automatic it would be nice to be able to select specific methods and have them copied automatically.
I'm using eclipse and ideally it would update my interface each time I save implementation since thats when it checks my code and complains that my changes break the interface.
If you add the method to your *Service interface, then Eclipse can auto-generate the method ("Add unimplemented methods...") in your *ServiceImpl servlet, which you can then just fill in. Also, if you've got the Google Eclipse plugin installed, it will underline the new method in your *Service interface and complain that it's not in the *ServiceAsync. It might have a CTRL + 1 option to generate it in that interface as well.
You don't really need a tool. Just factor out the many RPC methods by just one method that takes a Request/Response. all you need to do is create subclasses of Request/Response and you don't need to think about adding new methods in the 2 interfaces.
You can use Google Guice on the server side to map the incomming request to a class handling the call... or you could use a visitor approach to forward the incoming request to the code handling the request (without resorting on a big instanceof construct).
Instantiations WindowBuilder GWT Designer does exactly what you are looking for.
The RemoteService Wizard will create all three files at the same time as well as keep them in sync as you make changes.
http://www.instantiations.com/windowbuilder/gwtdesigner/index.html
FWIW - I am only a user/purchaser of this product. I am not employed or in any other way related to Instantiations.