Its Eclipse in Clips ...

Eclipse Spykit V2 Available

2012-01-29T17:31:00.001-08:00

Hey Guys

Thanks for all your support to Eclipse Spykit V1.
Having had all the information on a tabular fashion, we thought as Architects, as Designers, as Code Reviewers ... you wouldnt want to get into details straight away. You would want to start from Summary, to breakup and then to details.

Eclipse Spykit V2, is an attempt to present the same data as in V1 in a more pictorial manner and zoom out to provide you with the summary of Startup Information.

Here is the screenshot of Eclipse Spykit V2.

Please visit http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/eclipse-spykit/
Code is available for Download on SVN.
Binary is available for Download on Downloads Page.

Looking forward to get the same response as earlier and also this time more issues and bugs and enhancements and recommendations.

Regards
Malai

Spykit v1.0 Available for Download

2011-12-26T02:48:00.000-08:00

Eclipse Spykit v1.0 is now available for Download as Plugin and as Source.
Screenshot of the current Eclipse Spykit v1.0 is as below

The plugin currently has 2 Views
1. Active Plugins View -> Displays the Bundles that are in Started State.
2. Loaded Class View -> If you select the Plugin in the active plugins view, you can look at the classes that are loaded from the selected plugin.

This plugin will currently help you in optimisting and fine tuning your Plugin Load / Product Startup. Enjoy Spying on Eclipse.

Please download the same from https://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/eclipse-spykit/

Eclipse Spykit Project

2011-12-24T06:18:00.000-08:00

Almost every day we hear of new companies adopting Eclipse as their application development platform of choice. With the number of Eclipse Projects growing in leaps and bounds in the Eclipse Community chances of the risk of memory bloat and performance degradation is high.

Therefore Performance Tuning is the need of the hour in the Eclipse Projects.

Eclipse Spykit Project is inspired by Runtime Spy, one of Core Tools available from Eclipse.org. During our search for Runtime Spy, we realised that the support for this tool has been stopped since Eclipse 3.2 when Eclipse was moved to OSGI.

Our motive of this project is to revive Runtime Spy back and add more functionality into the same and also create a set of tools that would come in handy for Performance Tuning of Eclipse Projects.

You can read more about this Project and also download the Source Code from www.eclipselabs.org

https://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/eclipse-spykit/

We invite the Eclipse Community to start using the project for their performance tuning activities. Do please log in issues and new features that you would be interested in. We would be more than happy to implement it and provide a release immediately.

Happy Birthday Eclipse ! Join the Celebration

2011-12-05T18:44:00.001-08:00

Eclipse Demo Camp 2011, Bangalore Edition.
On the occasion of Eclipse's 10th Birthday, Bangalore also decides to join the celebration.The event starts with Eclipse Birthday Cake Cutting @ 6pm.Followed by that would be the series of Presentations by our Eclipse Experts in Town.Snacks and Drinks will be served during the event and post Presentations we would start with the Dinner.

Presenters

If you would like to present at this event, please add your name below.

Key Note Address :: Sri Guha.V, BOSCH - TBD
Niranjan Babu, BOSCH - Introduction to Sphinx
Saurav Sarkar, SAP Labs India- Collaborative modeling through CDO and Mylyn Context
Nidhi Rajshree/Srikanth Tamilselvam, IBM Research India - Cockpit Modelling ToolKit, An Eclipse and BPMN based toolkit for Citizen centric Service Design
Prof.Dinesha, IIIT, Bangalore - Our Experience in Introducing Eclipse in IIITB.

Be there to join the Celebration. For more details please visit
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamps_November_2011/Bangalore

Adding Control Decoration to SWT Controls

2011-08-31T03:18:00.000-07:00

Adding Control Decoration to SWT Controls 

1.Create a SWT Control. For e.g. Text

2.Create a ControlDecoration Object.

  It takes 2 Parameters.  

  a) Control for which this has to act as a Decoration  

  b) Position where the Decoration has to appear.

3.On the ControlDecoration object, assign an Image to show as Decoration using .setImage method.

4.On the ControlDecoration object, call the hide method as it shouldnt be shown by default.

5.Whenever you want to show the Decoration, call the show method on the ControlDecoration Object.

6.Whenever you want to hide the Decoration, call the hide method on the ControlDecoration Object. 

Code Snippet ::                    

final Text text = new Text(parent, SWT.SINGLE | SWT.LEAD | SWT.BORDER);

text.setLayoutData(new GridData(SWT.FILL, SWT.CENTER, true, false));

text.setText("");

final ControlDecoration dec = new ControlDecoration(text, SWT.TOP | SWT.LEFT);

dec.setImage(PlatformUI.getWorkbench().

getSharedImages().getImage(ISharedImages.IMG_DEC_FIELD_ERROR));

dec.setShowOnlyOnFocus(true);

dec.hide();

text.addModifyListener(new ModifyListener() {

 @Override

 public void modifyText(ModifyEvent e) {

 if (text.getText().length() > 0) {

   dec.hide(); 			

 } else {

   dec.show();

 }

 }

 });

Enabling a Short Cut Key on a Certain Context in your UI

2011-08-31T03:14:00.000-07:00

Requirement :
Ctrl + F is already used for Find in most of the Views and Editors in Eclipse.
Ctrl + F in my View should display a Message BOX.

Solution : Create a Context where Ctrl + F will display a Message Box.
-------------------------------------------
Enabling a Short Cut Key on a Certain Context in your UI

1.Create the Command using Extension Point : org.eclipse.ui.commands.
Fill id, name. Leave the Default Handler blank.
2.Add an Extension for Extension Point : org.eclipse.ui.contexts
Fill id, name and assign parentId : org.eclipse.ui.contexts.window.
3.Create a Key Binding using Extension Point : org.eclipse.ui.bindings
Fill the Sequence, schemeId : as defaulAcceleratorConfiguration, contextId : as in step 2, commandId: as in Step3
-------------------------------------------
Now associating the created Context to a Context in your Workbench.
Open the View/Editor where you want Ctrl + F to display a Message BOX.

in CreatePartControl method
we need to call a private method activateHandlers();
In activateHandlers method
1. We need to register and activate the Context that we created in Step 2 above.
2. We also need to create an Handler to display a Message Box.
3. Associate the handler with the Command that we created in Step 1 above.

This will associate enable Ctrl + F to work differently on your View/Editor.
-------------------------------------------
Because you created the Context and the Handler, you are responsible to dispose away the same.

Code Snippet ::

For Dispose Method :: override the one in View/Editor
@Override
public void dispose() {
if(fAddHandler != null) {
fAddHandler.dispose();
}
}

For activateHandlers()
private void activateHandlers() {
ICommandService commandSupport = (ICommandService)getSite().getService(ICommandService.class);
IHandlerService handlerService = (IHandlerService)getSite().getService(IHandlerService.class);
contextService = (IContextService)getSite().getService(IContextService.class);

if (commandSupport != null && handlerService != null && contextService != null)
{
activation = contextService.activateContext("org.ancit.examples.commands.samplecontext");

fAddHandler = new AbstractHandler() {
public Object execute(ExecutionEvent event) throws ExecutionException {

action1.run();
return null;
}};
handlerService.activateHandler("org.ancit.examples.commands.commands.sampleCommand", fAddHandler);
}

}

Online Eclipse Quiz - Its Free !

2011-05-13T23:12:00.001-07:00

Hi Guys
Wanna test your Eclipse PDe/RCP Knowledge. ANCIT has an Online Eclipse Quiz hosted for Eclipse Users to try their hands on. The Developer who scores the Best Time and Max Right answers would get a Learning BIRT CBT as a Gift from ANCIT.

Participate to be a winner !

If you are interested please write to reva@ancgrp.com for more information and we would be able to provide you with the link to take the examination.

Flyweight Pattern - A Structural Pattern

2011-05-13T22:30:00.000-07:00

Flyweight Pattern, is a known Structural Pattern. This pattern is used by us daily in the programming world knowingly or unknowingly. When i read about it in a Blog in Javabeat.com, i did feel like documenting it in my blog too.

The idea behind Flyweight Pattern is sharable Objects. The ideology is dnt recreate what already is existing on the Memory, when something is not found on Memory then recreate it. In simple words save some memory for better things than duplicating.

Java String is a perfect example of implementation of Flyweight Pattern.
String a = "Hello"
String b = "Hello"
String c = new String("Hello");
String 'a' and 'b' are implementation of the Flyweight Pattern. Both the variables point to the same memory. Hello is not created 2 times in your Memory. But String 'c' is duplicating Hello in memory which should be avoided.

Hope this helps in understanding Flyweight Pattern.

Sphinx - A New Modelling Tookit using EMF

2011-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys !
Sphinx is a new Eclipse Modelling Project, still in Incubation State. To read more about Sphinx project please visit www.eclipse.org/sphinx. I have documented the steps followed to Step Up the Development Environment of Sphinx on your machine.
Thanks to Mr.Stephan Eberly, Project In Charge, Sphinx for offering this time to help me prepare and review this presentation.
Please click on the link - Setting Up Sphinx Development Environment.
Regards
Malai

OSEE - An Eclipse Project on System Engineering Management

2011-04-26T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys

Been evaluating OSEE in the recent past. I have documented my learnings in a presentation.

Thanks to Mr.Ryan, Development Team, OSEE for all his support rendered till date.

The concept is awesome ! Many Tools, same data store. To read more click on the link below.

Presentation on OSEE

Regards

Malai

Eclipse - A Platform with Ethics !

2011-03-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

This is an extract from Contributing to Eclipse by Erich and Kent.
You need to appreciate the fundamentals of Eclipse before you become Experts.
Every system, business, person who has some basic ethics is always to survive longer.

Stronger the foundation, longer the life. Thats the success story for Eclipse. Its an Platform with Ethics.

Foundation Rules of Eclipse

1. CONTRIBUTION RULE :: World we live in is Democratic, It is not a single man or machine controlled system. Same is with Eclipse it is hybrid system where everything is a Contribution. Eclipse is build on Contributions. It is a Society Platform.

2. LAZY LOADING RULE :: World is a complex system. Everybody exists but we touch base with them when it is required. Eclipse also has a Lazy Load Mechanism, Eclipse has a lot of Contributions available but they are loaded only on Demand.

On Load -> Declarative Definition using XML
On Demand -> Procedural Implementation using Java

3. SHARING RULE :: As part of humanity, we share, pair and repair thruout our life. Eclipse also holds the same principle. You cannot replace or remove, you can share the available space and contribute.

4.CONFORMANCE RULE :: To be part of the society that you live in you need to follow certain rules, you need to conform to some procedures and understandings. To be part of Eclipse, you need to follow some conformance rule thru expected Interface. It is a rule based Family.

5.SAFE PLATFORM RULE :: Being a human being, you need to take responsibility and protect your surrounding without letting them down. Similarly every extension point that you provide in Eclipse, you should take care of misbehavior and make eclipse a safe place to contribute.

6.MONKEY SEE / MONKEY DO RULE :: Learn from others, learn by looking at others, we all live like monkeys, same is applied to the learning curve of Eclipse. Learn by looking at other plugins, that is the advantage of Open Source.

7. USER ARBITRATION RULE :: Selection is everyones birth right. Leave the choice to the user. He decides which contribution out of many possible, he wants to activate. User is the final Owner. You are a service provider.

8.LICENSE RULE :: Everything needs a License to use. Please do specify how you want your users to use your contribution.

9.DIVERSITY RULE :: Contributions should allow users to use them in different ways. Like Extension Points in the Electrical Systems today allow different Extensions to be connected to it. But at the end the utilisation is Power. Therefore your contributions should provide different means of using it to the user keeping the end output standard.

Wow, dont those rules look like Rules to LIVE a happy life :) Thanks to Erich and Kent to document their thoughts. I have taken the privilege of comparing life with these principles. Hope that is interesting :)

Chao ! Live Longer and Watch a few more SUPER MOONS

Restoring Ur State - Concept Refreshed

2011-01-15T08:20:00.000-08:00

In recent times, while working @ clientside, I realised a very old concept is being burried as Eclipse moves forward but new users lack support.

Lots of Eclipse Developers write a lot of code to maintain the state of the Workbench, Window, Page, View and Editor not realising that Eclipse has an inbuilt support for saving the state of the workbench after end of each session.

Concept of IMemento in Eclipse explained in Articles

But read the Comment posted on Raja Kannappan's Blog which is still not answered. Hope you guys soon find an answer and update his blog.

Hope this helps in refreshing the old concept for who are on Eclipse and some pointers to who are new to Eclipse.

Eclipse Training Series in Bangalore (RCP,PDE,EMF,GEF,GMF)

2010-12-25T06:28:00.000-08:00

Hi
ANCIT CONSULTING is pleased to announce a new Eclipse Training Seriesto be held in Bangalore in 2011 as mentioned below

1. The instructor-led training course on Eclipse PDE/RCP.
Date :: January 10th - January 12th 2011
Cost :: Rs.8500/Participant + Service Tax of 10.36%.

2. The instructor-led training course on Eclipse Modellingframework(EMF/GEF/GMF).
Date :: February 09th - February 11th 2011
Cost :: Rs.9000/Participant + Service Tax of 10.36%.
Early Bird Discount :: 5% for Eclipse EMF/GEF/GMF Training,
if registered before January 10th 2011.

A complete schedule of the course will be made available on request.
Please feel free to write to us on reva (at) ancgrp (dot) com or contact us on +91-422-6461778 /+91-9943310809.

A Simple Test using SWTBOT !!

2010-12-16T22:32:00.001-08:00

SWTBOT was introduced to us in 2008 during a DemoCamp in Bangalore. Thanks to Ketan, the mastermind behind it. Ever since that i have always been wanting to use it. Finally i did get the chance.

I installed SWTBOT Plugins on my Helios Version of Eclipse and ran the example explained in Screencast A 5 minute quick quick tutorial on how to get started with swtbot. In this example they close the Welcome Window, open the Console from ShowView Shortcut Menu and then Close Console.

When i ran this test, it failed as i was in Resource Perspective and Console is not available on the ShowView Shortcut Menu in Resource Perspective. This is when i got curious on further evaluation and open the Console from inside the Show View > Others Menu.
After a few mistakes i got the code working ...

SWTBotMenu windowMenu = bot.menu("Window");
windowMenu.click();
SWTBotMenu showViewMenu = windowMenu.menu("ShowView");
showViewMenu.click();
SWTBotMenu otherMenu = showViewMenu.menu("Other...");
otherMenu.click();
SWTBotTree tree = bot.tree(0);
SWTBotTreeItem tItem = tree.getTreeItem("General").expand();
tItem.getNode("Console").doubleClick();

I just love the API flow. Its so much self explanatory. The API is very similar to documenting the steps of testing a UI. I would love if there is a document also generated when we ran the test case as a Test Description :) It could save a lot of time for a Tester to create a Functional TestCase Document.

Information on SharedImages in Eclipse

2010-12-13T00:20:00.000-08:00

In the recent trainings that i have been giving, i did realise that not many know about Image Handling in Eclipse. One of the most important part of Image Handling is using Shared Images that are made globally available by other plugins. This blog is not in interest of retyping what other experts have already done but to summarize it. Below are the links that already talk about usage of SharedImages in Eclipse.

After the introduction of the concept of RCPs, SharedImages have been shared across IDE and UI Plugin.

Interface IDE.SharedImages - org.eclipse.ui.ide
Interface ISharedImages - org.eclipse.ui

Hope this is useful for those who are looking at Eclipse Shared Images.

An Accidental Treasure - Remote System Explorer

2010-12-05T16:55:00.000-08:00

My Old Blog is still incomplete ... ANT is on its way slow and steady. In mean while i hit something that i couldnt stop blogging about. So i am here ... !!

Its been sometime that i have been actively working on latest Eclipse Versions. During recent times when i was playing with Galileo accidentally happen to open the list of perspectives thru Perspective Bar. Accidentally I happen to find this new perspective called Remote System
Explorer.

I got a little inqusitive to find out what did this mean. At first i thought its a Desktop Share perspective for Team Collaboration developed as Part of ECF. But later realised it is a Long
Pending Facility that i used to always miss in Eclipse. A way to access files from a Remote Machine. In simple words FTP inside Eclipse.

Thanks to the team, it is now there called as Remote System Explorer. I just got my company Webspace loaded on to it. :)) Try it its cool. It can connect to Unix, Telnet (Experimental), FTP, SSH and Windows.

Happy Eclipsing ... Should be back soon ... !!

ANT - Installation of ANT - Part 1

2010-11-02T02:08:00.001-07:00

On a journey to learn a long long pending task on my list "PDE Build", i realised the importance of ANT and how useful can it get when coming to Automating the Build System of any Java Application. Therefore decided to put my PDE Build learning on hold and continue with understanding of ANT. Part of this is this blog of mine. Hope it helps people who are trying to learn ANT. Definition of ANT as defined by the Makers of ANT, from http://ant.apache.org/
The main known usage of Ant is the build of Java applications. Ant supplies a number of built-in tasks allowing to compile, assemble, test and run Java applications. Ant can also be used effectively to build non Java applications, for instance C or C++ applications.

Prerequisites :: JDK to be installed and JAVA_HOME variable has to be set.

Installing ANT
1. Download Latest Build of ANT. Click Here
2. Extract the same into desired folder. (For e.g. c:/ant)
3. Create ANT_HOME variable in Environment Variable.

a. Right Click on My Computer and Select Properties.
b. In System Properties, select Advanced
c. Click on Environment Variables
d. In User Variables, click on New
e. Variable Name :: ANT_HOME
Variable Value :: Location of ANT as in Step 2.
f. Check if “path” variable exists.
a. If path variable exists, edit the same and append %ANT_HOME%/bin;
b. Else create path variable by repeating Step ‘d’ and Step ‘e’.
Variable Name :: path
Variable Value :: %ANT_HOME%/bin;

4. After completing Step 3, its time to test ANT.

a. Open Command Line
b. Type ANT
c. If you get the below output, then ANT is installed properly
Buildfile: build.xml does not exist!
Build failed

You have successfully installed ANT. Now in the next part lets look at how to work with ANT.

Learn GEF at $499 - Online Training Introductory Offer

2010-09-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Hey Eclipseans !!

With a growing motive to support the Eclipse Community, ANCiT, India's 1st and only Eclipse Consulting Firm has decided to offer Eclipse Training Courses online @ affordable prices. After having been successful in delivering On Site Trainings, Open Houses and CBTs, this would be there attempt to break the mind set of recession and help the community to continue to learn the technology at affordable cost.

Online Training Introductory Offer

Graphical Editing Framework @ $499.

Participates would also get to take away the world's 1st GEF CBT worth $50, for free as an introductory offer.

Courses will be conducted online using Skype and TeamViewer softwares.

For information or registration you need to just send an email to

training@ancitconsulting.com

For updates on other Eclipse services rendered by ANCIT CONSULTING please visit www.ancitconsulting.com

Regards

Malai

Publish Post

Eclipse Workbench Explained !!

2010-07-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys

To become an Eclipse Platform Developer, understanding of how Eclipse works is very important. Eclipse can be derivately explained using a mathematical formula as below

Application = Plugins + Platform

IDE = PDE + RCP

I have represented the above formula in the form of a Flow Diagram to explain the launching and working of Eclipse UI - WORKBENCH.

The above diagram explains the launch of Eclipse Workbench and hierarchy of Eclipse IDE Creation.

How to create Section with toolbar ?

2010-07-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

Setting Text to Section

Section = formToolKit.createSection(composite, ExpandableComposite.TITLE_BAR ExpandableComposite.TWISTIE ExpandableComposite.EXPANDED);

Section.setText("Main Contact Section");
FormData data = new FormData();
Section.setLayoutData(data);

Setting Tool Bar to Section

ToolBar bar = new ToolBar(Section, SWT.FLAT SWT.HORIZONTAL);
ToolItem item = new ToolItem(bar, SWT.PUSH);
item.setText("Ur Item Name");
item.addSelectionListener("Impl Your Listener");
Section.setTextClient(bar);

Regard's

Karthikeyan

E-Core Properties Unleashed

2010-07-11T22:56:00.001-07:00

Name Attribute Name

Type Data Type

Lower Bound 0 (Optional Attribute) > 0 Mandatory Attribute (1....n)

Upper Bound 1 set variable > 1 List

Changeable True (set Method will be generates)

False (no set Method will be generated)

Volatile True (no Variable will be declares - provides getter method)

False (variable will be declared)

Transient True (During Serialization will be omitted)

False(will be serialized )

ID True = Serialization (Primary key of the Object)

Referencing will be done based on Primary key

Default value Default value of the Attribute

Unique True Validate for Unique Entries

False Contain Duplicate Entries

Ordered True Ordered List

False Unordered List

Unsettable :: Every variable has 3 States

1.Contains Value

2.Contain Empty value - made Empty

3.Never Initialized

before initialization - value will always be false

after set Operation - value will always be True

List Never generate a set method

E Reference

containment True -Parent Child Relationship (Composition in UML )

False - Yet another Reference (Association)

Eopposite Bi Directional references

Regards's
Karthikeyan

How to Run JUnit Programmatically

2010-06-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

// JUnitLaunchShortcut - The launch shortcut to launch JUnit tests.

JUnitLaunchShortcut jUnitLaunchShortcut = new JUnitLaunchShortcut();
jUnitLaunchShortcut.launch("Pass the Java Project containing JUnits Classes", "run");

Regards's
Karthikeyan

Job Openings available at INDIA on Eclipse Technologies...

2009-10-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

For more details:
Visit @ http://www.ancitconsulting.com/jobportal.htm
Contact @ +91-9894833553
Mail @ careers@ancitconsulting.com

Regards
Karthik N

Day 1 - Eclipse India Summit 2009

2009-07-17T20:07:00.000-07:00

Day 1 : Eclipse India Summit 2009
8AM Show was set to start ... Ram, Dilip, Indu with the rest of the Saltmarch Team were moving round the floor to check on the final setup ... Outside the Registration Counter, there was Buzz from the waiting participants about what they expect from the show, which talk they plan to attend etc ...

8.30AM Registration Counter was opened and then we saw the scary thought turn into a positive way and smile on all our faces as we saw the crowd flowing into the Ballroom for the Keynote address. Indu did tell me that scary thought of organising a conference is after all the hard work of setting up the conference, waiting for participants/delegates to fill the keynote address. We had a long line of registration running till the gate of Chancery Pavillion. Oh Yes thats where the event was organised in Bangalore.

9.30AM The show begun on time, Mr.Ramkumar from Microsoft delivered the keynote address to a house full ballroom with standing participants @ the end of the hall ... Looking @ the turnout Dilip and myself had a smile exchanged as we met each other inside the hall ... He spoke about Microsoft support for Interoperability between Toolsets.

10.20AM The sessions started as planned post Tea Break with Lavanya and Me in Ballroom 1 on GEF, Ilya in Ballroom 2 on Plugin Development and Short Focussed Sessions in Esquire. Halls were packed with motivated participants sitting out there with their own expectations from each of the speakers ...

1.30PM At the end of Session 1 feedbacks from all the rooms where good and we moved on to have some tasty lunch after which i had to run for my Session 2.

2 PM Session 2 begun ... Chetan and Me were on all set to deliver our EMF Talk ... We had parallelly 4 Focused Talks running in the other halls .. Our hall was packed no space to sit with some standing audience to listen to what we had to say about EMF ... Expectation level was highly set ...

5 PM End of Day 1. All happy organisers, participants and sponsors ... Keep waiting till i come back with Day 2 Stories ...

Eclipse India Summit 2009 - COME ON GUYS !!

2009-07-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys
Back after a Break ... but with a BANG is ANCIT !! Yes ... Asia's 1st and Only Eclipse based 2 Day Conference under the title .. Eclipse India Summit 2009 is all set to be opened on July 17th in Bangalore ... Visit www.eclipsesummit.com

The Summit is spread over 2 Days consiting of 7 Workshops and 13 Focused Session. For more information please visit http://www.devmarch.com/eclipsesummit/agenda.html

ANCiT is the lead organiser in collaboration with Saltmarch Media, the creators of lots of such events under the brand www.devmarch.com !!

I am talking at the Summit too ... I have 2 workshops, one on GEF and the other one of EMF. Looking forward you guys in that hall :) otherwise i would be floating at the spot on both the days and even before ...

wOULd be more than happy to be fired and asked and spotted and talked too :) Meet U in Bangalore next week ....

Regards
Malai

GEF Template for Eclipse v3.4.x To Learn GEF Through Template...

2009-05-29T02:20:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Now you can learn GEF through the Template in Eclipse like HelloRCP...

Following Steps are Need to do...

STEP 1: Download the GEF Template for Eclipse v3.4.x from
http://www.ancitconsulting.com/utilities.htm website...

STEP 2: Extract the .zip and Copy the org.ancit.eic.gef.template_1.0.0.jar and
paste into your Ganymede plugins folder...

STEP 3: Run the Eclipse Ganymede version and go to
File->New->Project->Plug-in Project and Provde the name of the project

STEP 4: Click Next->Select Rich Client Application as 'No'->Next You will find the
plugin with a GEF Editor Template like shown below

STEP 5: If you want to change the name press Next else Select the Template and
click finish

STEP 6: You will get the example code, Just run and create a Editor with provided
extension in Editor Extension...

This will work for 3.4.x Versions....

Regards
karthik N :)

Eclipse Demo Camp Bangalore June’2009

2009-04-16T05:19:00.000-07:00

Dear All

After long me back ... Eclipse Demo Camp June 2009 open for registrations .. Please visit and update the Wiki to register your presence or email at democamp@ancitconsulting.com and we could help you register for the camp ....

http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamps_Galileo_2009/Bangalore

Looking for more participants and participation as Speakers ... Meet you at the Demo Camp ...

Regards

ANCiT Consulting

Worldwide Eclipse Training Series in collaboration with Eclipse Foundation by ANCiT...

2009-03-16T02:46:00.000-07:00

Dear All

ANCiT proudly announces the Eclipse Training Series, a Public Classroom session for Eclipse based Technologies like RCP, PDE, EMF, GEF in collaboration with Eclipse Foundation during the month of April-May 2009.

Thanks for the support rendered in the last Eclipse Training series organized in Nov 2008, making it a grand success in Bangalore ... This time ANCiT has decided to organize the same in 4 cities around the world...

1.Course on Modeling Techniques :: Bangalore and Pune
2.Course on Basic RCP :: Sydney and Detroit

For more information please visit
http://www.eclipse.org/community/training/2009spring.php

Please visit the following links to register for the course.

For Bangalore…
https://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=712308

For Pune…
https://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=712357

For Sydney, Australia…
https://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=712299

For Detroit, United States…
https://www.regonline.com/checkin.asp?eventid=712254

If you face any difficulties in registration or require any further information regarding the courses please feel free to email us at training@ancitconsulting.com

You can also avail a discount of 10% if there is a group registration.

Thanks & Regards

ANCiT Consulting...

Eclipse Con 2009 - Me Speaking there !!

2009-01-06T10:42:00.001-08:00

Hey Guys !!
Meet me @ Eclipse Con 2009 ... Me looking forward to my 1st visit to Eclipse Con in Silicon Valley. Looking forward to meet you all as i proudly bring to you the ever growing Eclipse Ecosystem in India under a short talk http://www.eclipsecon.org/2009/sessions?id=242

Also would be a great opportunity to present ANCIT, an Indian Eclipse Company.
Thanks for your support. Looking forward to meet you all @ Eclipse Con 2009.

Regards
Malai

CBT based BIRT Reference Material Launched

2008-12-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

Hello
Thanks for the response given to our GEF Reference Material launched about a fortnight back. This has motivated us to immediately work on the next Series and we decided to hit the more broader market and therfore this time we are in form to release support for the Reporting and Charting APIs from Eclipse, BIRT.We take immense pleasure in releasing the 1st CBT Tutorial for BIRT to the Eclipse World under the same brand "Eclipse in Clips Series".

For more information, course content, brochure and sample content please visit
http://www.ancitconsulting.com/birtlearningfinal.htm

RegardsMalai

CBT based GEF Reference Material Launched

2008-11-27T18:51:00.000-08:00

ANCiT has launched a series of low cost reference material for Eclipse under the title "Eclipse in Clips Series". These are CD based Training Material for Eclipse including PDE / RCP / GEF / EMF.

As part of this series, GEF Reference Material containing about 32 ExampleSets, covering GEF extensively has been launched at an Introductory Offer the CBTs are launched at a throw away price of Rs.150/- per CD delivery within India and $10 for Worldwide Delivery.

For more Info
Please visit http://www.ancitconsulting.com/geflearning.htm.
Checkout the Brochure on http://www.ancitconsulting.com/gefcontent/brochure.pdf
Course Coverage on http://www.ancitconsulting.com/gefcontent/Gef_new%20version.pdf

Looking forward to make this attempt of ANCiT a great success, as you have been all supporting us till now. Thanks once again and looking forward to get a purchase order from you. Please forward the same to other colleagues who would be interested in learning more about Eclipse ... We have lot more following on its way.

Regards
Malai

Print your Gef Editor

2008-11-13T21:36:00.001-08:00

Here the Code to print your Gef Editor

Create an Action Method In your configureGraphicalViewer and override a run method….

In the run () Method implements the following Code….

int style = PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow().getShell().getStyle();

Shell shell = new Shell ((style & SWT.MIRRORED)! =0? SWT.RIGHT_TO_LEFT:SWT.NONE);

PrintDialog dialog = new PrintDialog(shell,SWT.NULL);

PrinterData data = dialog.open();

if(data != null)

{

PrintGraphicalViewerOperation operation = new PrintGraphicalViewerOperation(new Printer(data),getGraphicalViewer());

// here you can set the Print Mode

operation.setPrintMode(2);

operation.run("Printing Gef");

}

//Set the Text and register that to your toolbar….

printAction.setText("Print");

getEditorSite().getActionBars().getToolBarManager().add(printAction);

Now you can see a Print Button on the Toolbar as shown in the image....

Once you click the Print Button on the Toolbar… Print Dialog will open then your can select the printer and Click Print to print your editor Content....

Regards,

Karthikeyan

Eclipse Modeling Training Series in Bangalore - OVER SUCCESSFULLY !!

2008-11-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all ... This event has been really special for ANCIT. We did announce it for the 1st time in UK, our 1st International Venue of Training. Though it didnt work out and we had to cancel due to lack of participation, it was still a good marketing effort giving us a global visibility.

Our home ground, as usual never let us down .. we had a packed session in Bangalore with 15 participants not just around India but also from other parts of Asia making this event truly an Asian Event. We had a mix of multicity participations including 8 from Bangalore, 3 from Mumbai, 3 from Bangkok and 1 from Pune.

Day 1 and Day 2 was Concentrative around GEF comprising of a gentle walkthrough the powerful framework ... Day 3 was Diluted with the Modeling Concepts of EMF and the highlight of the course was GEF and EMF Integration, a Talk about EAdapters and NotifyChange methods that are involved in the integration process.

As last time, we did give out Participation Certificates to all our participants to acknowledge their Participation ... So heres my team ... .. Check out the PIC ...

Thanks to one and all for supporting us and letting us build this active Eclipse Community in India. Looking forward for more opportunities from Eclipse Foundation to grow this from here.

Happy Eclipsing !! .... Malai

Scroll Panel on Compartment Figure

2008-10-31T03:06:00.000-07:00

To add the horizontal and/or vertical scrolling to the Compartment Figure

Step 1: Initialize the ScrollPane

(Ex: ScrollPane scrollpane = new ScrollPane () ;)

ScrollPane class which implements automatic horizontal and/or vertical scrolling for a single IFigure child.

Step 2: Assign the setViewport to ScrollPane Variable

( Ex: scrollpane.setViewport(new FreeformViewport()); )

Sets the ScrollPane's Viewport to the passed value

Step 3: Assign the setContents to ScrollPane Variable

( Ex: scrollpane.setContents(“CompartmentFigure”); )

Sets the contents of the current viewport

Step 4: add the scrollpane to the Figure

(Ex: “Figure Variable”.add(scrollpane);)

Output:

Regards,
Karthikeyan

Generating Array Accessors in EMF

2008-10-21T03:29:00.000-07:00

Have you ever tried to generate References or variable with multiplicity more than 1? Eclipse being an OOPs follower would always generate a List containing a list of References or Datatypes. But if you are an Array Lover, How do you generate an Array Accessor for 0..* References or 0..* Variables.
There is a hidden variable in EMF that lets you customise ur code generator to generate Array Accessors for all list.
Now where do you find this ...
1. Select the Root Package of your model in your GENMODEL File.
2. Look in the properties and scroll to the MODEL Section.
3. 1st Property would be Array Accessors. It would be initialised to False by default, Change it to True.
Refer to Figure below :: Now you are all set to generate code. All the generated code would result in Array Accessors wherever we would expect a List.
Thats a quicky. Try it out !

Eclipse Training Series Nov 2008

2008-09-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

Dear All
Thanks for the support rendered early this year to make the Eclipse RCP Training Series a grand success in Bangalore ... This time ANCiT has decided to organise the same in collaboration with Eclipse Foundation in 4 cities around the world ...

Course on Modelling Techniques :: Bangalore and Pune
Course on Basic RCP :: Sheffield and Glasgow

Please visit http://www.eclipse.org/community/training/2008fall.php to register or email to training@ancitconsulting.com for more information ....

Happy Eclipsing ...

Malai

Eclipse Demo Camp Bangalore Nov'2008

2008-09-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

Dear All

After long me back ... Eclipse Demo Camp Nov 2008 open for registrations .. Please visit and update the Wiki to register your presence or email at democamp@ancitconsulting.com and we could help you register for the camp ....
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse_DemoCamps_November_2008/Bangalore
Looking for more participants and participation as Speakers ... Meet you at the Demo Camp ...

Regards
Malai

Place a label on the Connection Line in GEF Editor

2008-09-26T00:36:00.000-07:00

To add a label to the connection line Follow the following steps…..

1. Create the Poly Line Connection

2. Create the label

3. Adding label to the Line

//To create the Poly Line Connection

PolylineConnection polyCon= new PolylineConnection();

//To create the label

Label conLabel = new Label("Label At Midpoint");

//To add label to the Connection Line

polyCon.add(label, new MidpointLocator(polyCon, 0));

// MidpointLocator is the Algorithm used to place the Label at the middle of the Line...

This code will display the a Label with the Text “Label At Midpoint” at the middle of the Source and Target Figure as shown in the Figure….

Include the following line of codes to add some properties to the Label….

conLabel.setOpaque(true);

conLabel.setBackgroundColor(ColorConstants.buttonLightest);

conLabel.setBorder(new LineBorder());

Output:

Now Lets see how to add the label to the starting and ending point of the connection Line...

In the same code include the Following lines of code...

Label endPointLabel = new Label("Target point");

endPointLabel.setOpaque(true);

endPointLabel.setBackgroundColor(ColorConstants.buttonLightest);

endPointLabel.setBorder(new LineBorder());

// ConnectionEndpointLocator is the Algorithm used to //display the Label at the End point of the Connection line...

polyCon.add(endPointLabel, new ConnectionEndpointLocator(polyCon, true));

Label endPointLabel2 = new Label("Source point");

endPointLabel2.setOpaque(true);

endPointLabel2.setBackgroundColor(ColorConstants.buttonLightest);

endPointLabel2.setBorder(new LineBorder());

ConnectionEndpointLocator endpointLocator = new ConnectionEndpointLocator(polyCon,false);

polyCon.add(endPointLabel2, endpointLocator);

Regards,

Karthikeyan.p

Background Image To GEF Editor

2008-09-17T23:38:00.000-07:00

To Set The Background Image to Editor Do the Following

In Your Editor’s EditPart Class Include the Following line of code in the CreateFigure( ) Method

IFigure figure = (IFigure) new BackgroundImage(“Image Path “);

Create the Class BackgroundImage which Extends FreeformLayer

Declare the variable for Image.

Generate getter and setter for the variable.

In The Constructer class Add the Following:

public BackgroundImage (String path) {
super();
try {
setImage(new Image(PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getDisplay(),
new FileInputStream(path)));
}
catch (Exception e)
{
System.out.println(e);
setImage(null);
}
}

Override paintFigure( ) Method and Include the Following lines of Code

protected void paintFigure(Graphics graphics) {
if (getImage() != null)
{
Rectangle targetRect = getBounds().getCopy();
org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Rectangle imgBox = getImage().getBounds();
graphics.drawImage(getImage(), 0, 0, imgBox.width,imgBox.height, targetRect.x, targetRect.y, targetRect.width, targetRect.height);
}
super.paintFigure(graphics);
}

Output:

Regards,
Karthikeyan.p

Database Development in Eclipse with the Data Tools Platform (DTP)

2008-09-01T00:17:00.000-07:00

What is DTP

The Eclipse Data Tools Platform (DTP) is a standard Eclipse plugin that you can use to perform most database development and query functions. The DTP plugin supports several database platforms via JDBC, including Derby, Oracle, MS SQL, Postgres, Sybase ASA, Flat Files, XML Data, Web Services, and more. This post covers connecting to MySQL and basic DTP features.

Requirements
Eclipse Europa(3.3) with inbuilt DTP 1.5
Mysql JDBC connector preferably Connector java 5.1
Mysql version 5.0, it allows both local and remote access of the database.

How to Create Connection Profile

1.Select File > New > Other
2.Expand Connection Profiles and select Connection Profile, Next >
3.Select JDBC Generic connection, Next>>
4.Name the connection profile For ex..Sample
5.Click on the Browse icon and select the required driver,
(Here Im using the MySQL JDBC Driver5.0)

6.Give DB password, save it if you prefer. Finish>>
7.Now its all set ready to ping the database.

Creating a table using DTP

1.Select database > right click > connect – Now the database is connected
2.Expand the left pane >right click on table you have created

3.Select new table>next >name the table>Add column and rows as you wish>Finish to create a table.
4.Now the table is created, to alter table or insert values.
Select the table name on the left pane>Click on the “Generate DDL” and use SQL query to do alter, delete, drop,.
Some useful links/References

http://www.eclipse.org/datatools/downloads.php
http://2tbsp.com/node/86

Regards

Imran

Installing And developing RAP Application...

2008-08-30T04:37:00.000-07:00

1. Downloading RAP Plug-in (Eclipse 3.3)

With Eclipse up and running, go to

Help-> software updates->Find and Install.

Click on the Search for new features to install radio button and then click next.

Click on the New Remote Site button, the New Update Site dialog will appear.

Enter a name for the update site, such as "RAP Update Site" and then enter the URL http://download.eclipse.org/technology/rap/update-site, click OK to create the new update site entry.

The entry you just created now appears in the update site list and is selected. Ensure it is the only site selected and click Finish.

The update manager will now connect to the site and display the feature available on the site. Check the update site and click Next to continue the selection process.

Accept the terms in the license agreement and click the Next button.

A list with the feature to install will be displayed. Click Finish to start the installation process.

The feature and plug-ins will now be downloaded from the site and installed locally. Note that, the location of RAP plug-in should not be the location of Eclipse. Confirm the following prompt to restart Eclipse.

2: Configuring Target Platform

After restart Eclipse, press Ctrl + 3 type Install RAP Target Platform and select that command.

The Target Platform Installation wizard will appear. Here we have to select the destination for the target i.e. selects the location of RAP Plug-in from which location we have installed before.

3. Developing RAP Application

Step 1: Create a New project

Create a new Project by right-clicking in the pac

kage explorer and select New -> Project. In the upcoming "New Project"-wizard, select Plug-in Project from the section Plug-in Development.

In the upcoming New Plug-in Project wizard, fill the first two steps as in plug-in development and finally select the RAP Hello World in the template page and then click Finish.

Now you just right click on the Project and select Run as->RAP Application.

After running the application, the perspective will appear on the Browser.

4: Executing a RCP project as RAP Application

Step 1: Import your plug-in project

Now just import your plug-in project (for example org.ancit.database.proj) into RAP Application Workspace.

After importing the project, we need to add this plug-in into RAP Application. So go to plugin.xml from RAP Hello World Project.

Then click Add button for get the required plug-in. In the upcoming “Plug-in selection” wizard, select the your Plug-in and click OK. Then save the plugin.xml.

Then go to ApplicationWorkbenchAdvisor.java from testRAP i.e. RAP Hello World Project.

Here we need to give PERSPECTIVE_ID of your project if you have a perspective.

Step 2: Run the RAP Application

After that go to Run->Open Run Dialog. In the upcoming Run Wizard we need to select the existing RAP Run configuration to launch the Application. In this wizard select the Bundles and click the check box for your Plugin.

After that click the Run Button. Now we can get your project in the Browser. Now the running the RCP application as a RAP application is completed

.Regards

Vinoth

Makes Label to Grow Vertically

2008-08-28T06:03:00.000-07:00

While your are implementing the Direct Edit on Your Label Normally it Grow Horizontal.

Here the Changes in your class make your label to grow vertically.

Let’s see how to implement that......

In Two Place Changes to be made.....

1.”DirectEditManager” Class Implement the createCellEditorOn () Method as shown…

protected CellEditor createCellEditorOn(Composite composite) {

return new TextCellEditor(composite, SWT.MULTI | SWT.WRAP);

}

2. “CellEditorLocator” Class Change th

e Line of Code as shown in Bold…

Here the Text move Horizontally according to the Label Width… Then it start growing Vertically.....

public void relocate(CellEditor celleditor) {

Text text = (Text)celleditor.getControl();

Point pref = text.computeSize(

lbl.

getBounds().width,-1);

Rectangle rect = lbl.getTextBounds().getCopy();

lbl.translateToAbsolute(rect);

text.setBounds(rect.x-1,rect.y-1,pref.x+1,pref.y+1);

}

The Output will be......

Regards,

Karthikeyan

Adding Multiple ContentPane In GEF...

2008-08-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

The following methods are Overridden in your EditPart are

1. addChildVisual()

2. setLayoutConstraint()

Expected out put...

How to get the Result mentioned Above...

Implement the Following Code in addChildVisual()

protected void addChildVisual(EditPart childEditPart, int index) {

if (childEditPart.getModel() instanceof "YourModel") {

"YourModel" col = ("YourModel") childEditPart.getModel();

if ("YourCondition") {

"ContentPane 1".add((("YourEditPart")childEditPart).getFigure());

} else {

"ContentPane 2".add((("YourEditPart")childEditPart).getFigure());

}

}
Implement the following Code in setLayoutConstraint()

public void setLayoutConstraint(EditPart child, IFigure childFigure,

Object constraint) {

childFigure.getParent().setConstraint(childFigure, constraint);

}

Regards
Karthikeyan

Eclipse Summit India 2009

2008-08-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

As the Member of the Eclipse Foundation in India, I am glad to announce that ANCiT Consulting has now partnered with Saltmarch Media (<http://www.saltmarch.com/) to run and produce the first and dedicated Eclipse-only summit for India, intuitively titled Eclipse Summit India. We have announced a two-city edition in Pune (July 14 2009) and Bangalore (July 16-18 2009). Please see here for more information: http://www.eclipsesummit.com/

So why are we waiting ... register and get ready to be part of World's most happenings Open Source Technology Conference right in your own City of Bangalore !!

The conference is open to Sponsors and for Paper Submission, Delegate Registration ... Looking forward to meet you all out there ...

Be Ready to be Eclipsed by Eclipse Summit India 2009

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM IN GEF...

2008-08-19T04:44:00.000-07:00

Provide the following implementation in createFigure() of RootEditPartClass

//NOTE:- The SmoothLineAlg Based on below 2Lines & Return the figure

f = new FreeformLayer();
f.setLayoutManager(new FreeformLayout());
f.setBorder(new MarginBorder(5));

ConnectionLayerconnLayer=(ConnectionLayer)getLayer(LayerConstants.CONNECTION_LAYER);

connLayer.setConnectionRouter(new ShortestPathConnectionRouter(f));
return f;

Result will be like this…

Regards
karthik N:)

Ask Us ... We are to help ... !!

2008-08-08T00:43:00.000-07:00

Why ask and wait ... when you can ask and get ... !! ANCiT Consulting launches IRC Chat Channel for Eclipse PDE Support ... As part of our Passion towards the Eclipse and contribution towards Eclipse Community ... We have launched a special chat service via our website. visit www.ancitconsulting.com/eclipsechat.htm ...

Channel #ancit-eclipse :: Find our eclipse experts online available to answer your Eclipse related Queries ...
Channel #eclipse :: Connects to the Eclipse Community IRC Chat Channel to find Eclipse developers around to world

Two Way Of Presenting the Palette with Items...

2008-08-05T04:59:00.000-07:00

1.Palette Stack

2.Palette Drawer

1.Palette Stack

STEP1: Initialize the Items(Ex: Selection) to the Palette Entry
STEP2: Assign the Palette Entry to the Palette Stack
STEP3: Assign the Palette Stack to the Palette Group
STEP4: Finally, Assign the Palette Group to the Palette Root and Return's the Root...

The Result will be like this...

2.Palette Drawer

STEP1: Initialize the Items to the Palette Entry
STEP2: Assign the Palette Entry to the Palette Drawer
STEP3: Finally, Assign the Palette Drawer to the Palette Root and Return's the Root...

The Result will be like this...

Regards
karthik N:)

Zoom actions to ur GEF Editor

2008-08-05T04:50:00.000-07:00

Zoom actions can be done in three ways to your Editor

Using Toolbar

Using Menu
Using Mouse Scroll

For Toolbar:

To add zooming action to your Toolbar is a two step process.

1. In EditorActionBarContributor Class With in the contributeToToolBar() Method add the Following Code:

toolBarManager.add(new ZoomComboContributionItem(getPage()));

2. In your Editor Class you need to overwrite getAdapter() method and add the Following Code:

if (type == ZoomManager.class) {
return getGraphicalViewer().getProperty(ZoomManager.class.toString());
}

Now you can see the Zoom working in your editor.

For Menu:

Adding Zoom actions to your Editor is a three step process

1. In EditorActionBarContributor Class With in the contributeToMenu() Method add the Following Code:

MenuManager viewMenu = new MenuManager("ZOOM");

viewMenu.add(getAction(GEFActionConstants.ZOOM_IN));

viewMenu.add(getAction(GEFActionConstants.ZOOM_OUT));

menuManager.insertAfter(IWorkbenchActionConstants.M_FILE,viewMenu);

2.Again in EditorActionBarContributor Class With in the buildActions()Method add two Line of Code

addRetargetAction(new ZoomInRetargetAction());

addRetargetAction(new ZoomOutRetargetAction());

3.In your Editor Class configureGraphicalViewer()method write the following code.

IAction zoomIn = new ZoomInAction(scalableFreeformRootEditPart.getZoomManager());

IAction zoomOut = new ZoomOutAction(scalableFreeformRootEditPart.getZoomManager());

getActionRegistry().registerAction(zoomIn);

getActionRegistry().registerAction(zoomOut);

For Mouse Scroll:

In your Editor Class configureGraphicalViewer()method write the following code.

viewer.setProperty(MouseWheelHandler.KeyGenerator.getKey(SWT.MOD1), MouseWheelZoomHandler.SINGLETON);

When the mouse scroll is made the ZoomIn and ZoomOut Can be seen on your Editor.

Regard's

Karthikeyan

Placing Grid On Your GEF Editor

2008-08-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

To Place a Grid on your Editor is a two Line of Code.

Add the Code in your Editor Class With in the ConfigureGraphicalViewer() Method

getGraphicalViewer().setProperty(SnapToGrid.PROPERTY_GRID_ENABLED, true);

getGraphicalViewer().setProperty(SnapToGrid.PROPERTY_GRID_VISIBLE, true);

But this code makes to display the Grid permanently on the Editor

Here I provide a Button Grid on the ToolBar Which Can be Turn the Grid ON OFF on your Editor

Add the Code to your Editor Class With in the ConfigureGraphicalViewer() Method

getActionRegistry().registerAction(new ToggleGridAction(getGraphicalViewer()));

Then in the ContributeClass Add the code to the method buildAction()

addRetargetAction(new RetargetAction(GEFActionConstants.TOGGLE_GRID_VISIBILITY,

GEFMessages.ToggleGrid_Label, IAction.AS_CHECK_BOX));

To Appear the Button on the Toolbar Add the Code in the ContributeToToolBar () Method

toolBarManager.add(getAction(GEFActionConstants,TOGGLE_GRID_VISIBILITY));

Now we can see how to add that to the Menu

In your ContributeClasss Add the code to the method ContributeToMenu ()

MenuManager mnu = new MenuManager ("view");

mnu.add(getAction(GEFActionConstants.TOGGLE_GRID_VISIBILITY));

menuManager.insertAfter(IWorkbenchActionConstants.M_EDIT, mnu);

Regard's
Karthikeyan

TextHover...TextEditor Part II

2008-08-01T04:52:00.001-07:00

The SourceViewer is also the central hub for configuring your editor with pluggable behaviour such as Text Hovering and Syntax Highlighting. For these features, The editor supplies a SourceViewerConfiguration that is used to configure the SourceViewer when it is created. Then the SourceViewerConfiguration will be used by the Editor.

By default, SourceViewerConfiguration does not show the hover behaviour or hover info for that your editor's source viewer configuration must be configured to define a pluggable hover object in ProjectSourceViewerConfiguration.

Text hover allows you to provide informational text about text shown in the editor. This is done using the ITextHover interface. A text hover is responsible for computing the region that should be used as the source of hover information, given an offset into the document. It is also responsible for providing the informational text about a specific region these can be done by the ProjectTextHoverClass.

The sample output also shown below...

Regards
karthik N:)

Y should Ganymede Users have all the FUN ...

2008-07-05T09:54:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my previous post ... Ganymede has this new worthy feature wherein you can browse to the contribution id for a view, perspective etc ... But Y should only the Ganymede Users have all the fun ... Thanks to Prakash, my friend for invoking our team at ANCiT to write a small plugin contributing a search page to search for ids in 3.2 and 3.3 version of Eclipse.
A Page has radio buttons to select which ID you want to search .. And then you can right click on th desired ID and copy it to the clipboard. Then paste it in your perspectiveFactory code or in your perspectiveExtension extension point or wherever required ...

Thanks to Prakash Anna again .. Now thats how we call him ... We have hosted this project on http://code.google.com/p/search4contributionid and its all available for download ... Please utilise this and let us know if you like it ... We plan to join the band and publish lot of utilities as our contribution to the eclipse community ...

Signin Off

Malai

Searching View ID in Eclipse was never this Easy !!

2008-07-04T07:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Eclipse Ganymede Edition ... Browsing for IDs of Perspective, Views, ActionSets, Wizards etc was never this easy ... Earlier to Ganymede if i need to extend a Perspective .. i would use PerspectiveExtensions and then in the targetID would have to copy paste the ID of the perspective that i want to extend from somewhere ... Now it is just a click again .. You have a browse button just next to the targetID parameter wherein it lists all the perspectives installed in eclipse that you could extend ... The same applies for View, ViewShortCut, NewWizardShortCut, ActionSet etc ...

Hope you enjoi this feature of Ganymede ...

Partitioning Of the Document in 'TextEditor'...

2008-07-02T06:07:00.000-07:00

Text editor is a UI component that can display any file content inside eclipse in a textual format. In reality every text editor has a textViewer or a special kind of textViewer called as sourceViewer which basically displays the file that is open. Every Viewer requires a model as input to display some content on the view. Therefore the input for textViewer is an object of type IDocument.

The editor requires a file as input whereas the textViewer needs an IDocument object to display the content. Therefore we need to convert the file into an IDocument object. This is done by the documentProvider class.

Every document can be broken into secions if required. This can be done using Partitioner class which divides the document into various sections using a set of rules that are mentioned inside the PartitionScanner class. Each partition or section is tagged using a String Token and this token can be used to refer to these sections later at any point during Text operation on editor.

Regards

UMA:)

Available in Europa(3.3) and Ganymede the one not available in 3.2…

2008-06-20T04:20:00.000-07:00

PDE now provides three templates for creating custom splash screens, complete with code, images and XML markup:

1. Interactive: A simulated log-in session
2. Browser: An embedded HTML browser
3. Extensible: A dynamic set of image contributions

This feature is available in the Templates section on the Splash page of the product configuration editor.

Splash screen templates are also available in the New Extension wizard when generating a new org.eclipse.ui.splashHandlers extension on the Extensions page in the plug-in manifest editor.

Regards
karthik:)

Thanks To Ganymede Again….'That has Made using Templates in eclipse Ganymede environment simpler'

2008-06-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

We can use Templates feature,
by just selecting the Templates view from
Show View-->General

Now I can use My Templates by just dragging and dropping it from the Template view to Editor Area…

We can also Create/Edit/Delete the Templates in the Template view itself...

The syntax to the selected Template will be displayed below in the Preview...

Watch out for more updates... :)

Regards

Karthik

I * (Workbench :: View) * Site

2008-06-18T08:01:00.000-07:00

Confused about WorkbenchSite and ViewSite ... tried to pictorial represent both the concepts as shown in the pic as below ...
It was very clear that IViewSite is a subclass of IWorkbenchSite but for some reason wasnt really clear with the concept ...

As per the above pic, ViewSite is clearly a subclass of WorkbenchSite treating View also a Workbench which also has a private actionBar ...

Now both ViewSite and WorkbenchSite have control area available to place their childrens governed by a set of layout rules ... WorkbenchSite has the WorkbenchPage that has Perspective applied as rules to arrange the widget like Views when compared to ViewSite where the PartControl uses SWT Layout to arrange the controls/ swt widget on them.

This is my inferences based on my understanding about the concept, would welcome comments, clarifications or informations regarding the same ... if my understanding is documented well pictorially :))

regardsMalai

GEF Public Classroom in July @ Bangalore

2008-06-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

Thks for your response and encouragement given during the recent RCP Training Series held in the month of June as part of the Eclipse RCP Training Series in collaboration with Eclipse Foundation.

ANCiT Consulting, decides to launch a Yearly Calender for Eclipse Sessions throughout the year in INDIA starting with its GEF Program scheduled for the month of July dated on 25th and 26th. A 2 day extensive GEF Hands on Course in the City of Bangalore.

Looking forward to have the same kind of response and support from the community to make this attempt a grand success. For more information please contact training@ancitconsulting.com or call on 919944410809.

signing off

Malai

Reporting from Eclipse DEMOCAMP - Bangalore Edition

2008-06-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

With the release of Ganymede around the corner .. Bangalore had its day of Eclipse Democamp organised .. Thanks to ThoughtWorks for sponsoring the space and to Eclipse Foundation for sponsoring the Dinner :))

We had 2 presentations. 1 from Ketan, ThoughtWorks on SWTBot 1.0 and then followed by thatn was from Sachin and his Team from Incture Technologies on Business Rule Integration Software developed using Eclipse.

Followed by that we all met over at Restaurant named India Gate in Indiranagar, next to Domulur Flyover to have our dinner to gether discussing use of Eclipse and ease of Eclipse in the Java Community ...

Thanks to all the participants for making the Eclipse Demo Camp - Bangalore Edition a grand succes.

Signing Off

Malai

RCP Training DONE ... 1st Public Classroom

2008-06-11T06:24:00.000-07:00

Its Coming, Its Coming .. and now its GONE !! RCP Training buzz finally came to an end on June 7th 2008 creating a milestone in the history of ANCiT Consulting ... adding the 1st Public Classroom in INDIA for Eclipse in collaboration with Eclipse Foundation ...

It turned out to be a sooooooooooper dooooooooooper hit with about 25 participants from 15 companies participating in the event held in JP Nagar, Bangalore.

We also gave away Certificate of Participation and Completion to all our participants .. which was new from our end .. we did that never before for any of our eclipse trainings ...
Thanks to the community for recognising ANCiT Consulting as an Eclipse Consulting Firm and providing its services to the Indian Community ... And keep watching out for more public classrooms to be annouced in the near future.

Client Testimonials

"It was such an eventful,interesting and insightful training ... !! "

"I had a good school life after a long time, I mean the training only. It is very useful."

"It was very informative ... we learnt why we are doing a few things in our project .. !!"

Signing OFF

Malai

Thanks To Ganymede...now i can chat in my eclipse environment without my manager's knowledge

2008-06-09T23:25:00.000-07:00

yup...its simple...in eclipse Ganymede environment,

switch to Communications Perspective...now you will find a new actionset contributed to your toolbar as shown below

Now , by clicking this Icon we can start chatting by selecting the respective provider from the wizard shown....

For more details refer to ECF Developer Guide under Help in Ganymede...

Have a cool techy chat....

Eclipse In Clips - Video Series from ANCiT Consulting Released

2008-04-24T06:02:00.000-07:00

ANCiT Consulting ... Working on releasing a Set of Eclipse Videos for PDE, RCP and BIRT releases its 1st Video on How to Create Own Extension Points ...

The link is hosted on Eclipse Live http://live.eclipse.org/node/514
Also available on Eclipse Resources http://www.eclipse.org/resources/resource.php?id=418

Please do feel free to write comments about our videos .. This would help us improve our quality.
Our plans are to host about 20 Videos related to PDE and RCP.

Waiting to read all your comments ... Take a few mins off to Review the Video.

Eclipse Developer Camp 2008 on April 12

2008-04-10T02:37:00.000-07:00

Yes ... the 1st Eclipse Community Event of the year in INDIA is rite here ...
ANCiT Consulting in collaboration with BOSCH hosts the Eclipse Developer Camp 2008 on April 12th i.e. Saturday ... The camp is attended by Eclipse Techies around the Silicon Valley of INDIA ... i.e. Bangalore. Special Guest for the event is Mr.Wayne Beaton from Eclipse Foundation ....

We are organising an open forum to fire questions on Wayne to answer questions that you would want to ask the Foundation ....

For more information and registration .. pls visit ...
http://wiki.eclipse.org/Bangalore_Eclipse_Community_Meeting_Apr_08

Eclipse Forum India 2008

2008-04-10T01:58:00.000-07:00

With the 3rd day of the Forum ... we are rite in the end of the show ...
Hey forgot to tell you we have a booth in the Forum .. ANCiT Consulting ... I had to explicitly tell the community we had a booth so late as the turn out for very poor and was very disappointing.

Probably this was due to the lack of interesting tracks on Eclipse ... Something that got missed was probably the community in india has matured and we now need more on advanced topics in Eclipse like GEF, EMF, GMF ...

According to Wayne ... He felt bad about Chris and Wayne being the only speaker for Eclipse in the Forum ... and it was not fair to call it as an Eclipse Forum ... I had offered to speak on some hot topics that i knew India needs today for Eclipse but the offer was turned down by the organiser ...

They are talking about you got to be pop star to be a speaker ... i am definitely the most popular trainer in the nation for Eclipse & my company is the most popular eclipse service providing company ... and its not that i am taking it as a pride but its just the frustration level to see how commercial a conference could get ...

Now ... this leaves me with no options ... and i really dont kno what to comment on about Eclipse Forum India 2008 ... The success rate of such conferences are not how popular the speakers are but the depth that you are here to deliver ... which was very disappointing and this was evident with the turn out ... 75% of the attendees were students ...

The conference was more like a students awareness camp ... :(( The good part is Students got the awareness on the existence of Eclipse ... Now sorry for being so rude but its just that i am upset about the happening and even more as it has happened in our community ...

I would welcome comments ... of how should conferences be organised ...

World at ur Finger Tips ... Key Binding

2008-03-28T13:37:00.001-07:00

Everyone dreams to get the world under his Finger Tips ... This blog will atleast try to get Eclipse under your Finder Tips if not the world.

Looking at how to activate KeyBinding ... i have tried to document my basic learning ... very basic i would wanna call it ...

Abhi ... to activate Key Binding on an Action in eclipse .. we need to understand the story board behind it ... When you press a Key, a request is raised that in turn fires a Command to run an Action. Now therefore we require 3 extensionPoints to be extended and their relationships are defined as shown below ...

Action is linked to the Command using attribute definitionId ... Key Binding is linked to the Command using commandId as the attribute. definitionId and commandId contain the same Command Id ...

Steps to be followed to create an Key Binding for a Action are ...

Create an Action in an ActionSet
Create a Command extending org.eclipse.ui.commands ...
Provide the Command with an ID
Copy the Command ID into definitionId of Action in the ActionSet
Command is associated to Action ...
Create a Key in a Binding Extn Point
Provide the Key Sequence ... m1 -> ctrl, m2 -> alt, m3 -> shift
Provide the scheme Id ... org.eclipse.ui.defaultAcceletorConfiguration
Provide a command Id same that was created earlier ..
Therefore Key and CommandId is assocated ...
Once all this is Done ... Action to CommandId to Key ... we are all set to run our example.
Run the plugin or application ... Once launched check the created Action .. it should also show the Key ShortCut that was attached to it and pressing that should run the action ...
DONE DONE ... Completed ... Write your comments to let me kno your code did work becoz this Blog .. DId you find it interesting ... Is is useful ... ?

regards

Malai

Opening Editors in External Editors

2007-12-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

I found how to open Contents in External Editors using Editor extension point ...
I always used to leave off command and launcher field in the editor extension point when i used to handle editors in trainings ... today decided to try it out ... and it worked ..

in the command property .. u can enter commands that you type in run method to open editors ... like notepad or pbrush etc ... this would open the specific filetype in the mentioned editor.

Please try and let me know if my understanding is correct .. Lauchner is used to programmatically launch an external editor ...

Placing Menu on MenuBar ...

2007-12-28T11:00:00.000-08:00

Dear All

I am sure you may be wondering what am i talking about ... To keep a Menu on the Menu Bar u need to use ActionSets in Eclipse .. thats so clear .. then what am i trying to talk about ...

its ok if you wanna add it to additions group .. thats easy .. u just need to create a menu and leave the path field blank ...

If you wanna place a menu after Edit or after Project on the root menubar of eclipse ... how would you do it ? ...

I recently realised that if you wanna place a menu after Edit .. give edit in the path of menu in actionSet ... so basically the finding is .. provide the id of the menu constant to place the menu after that item ...

What i dont kno ... how to place before FILE ? .... Hope this is useful ...

XSD to Ecore -> How to generate EAttrib as in XSD ?

2007-10-09T07:50:00.000-07:00

I dont kno how many of you would have noticed ... But when you generate your ECore by importing a XSD .. the attribute list would be sorted in Ecore .. which means the actual order from the XSD is lost ...

We had a requirement where in we need to keep the order as in the XSD instead of ordering it ... This is because we were dynamically also generating tables using the attributes as Columns.

Thanks for Ed ... we had posted this problem in the Newsgroup
http://www.eclipse.org/newsportal/article.php?id=27615&group=eclipse.tools.emf#27615

The steps to achieve this is mentioned below.

Checkout org.eclipse.xsd plugin as SourceCode.
Open the XSDEcoreBuilder Class.
Look for a method called as useSortedAttributes() ... in this method you would find by default it returns true .. change it to false ..

Thats it .. now u can redeploy this plugin into Eclipse again .. or simply run another version of Runtime Eclipse and generate your ecore ...

Creating POJOs using EMF ...

2007-10-09T07:43:00.000-07:00

You may at times want to generate a pure POJO without having any reference to EMF Objects ... In that case you can turn off the EMF Type Generation from the GenModel.

Select the Root of the GenModel and open the Property Sheet for the same.
Look for Category Model Feature Defaults, under which you would find Suppress EMF Types. Set that property to true.

This would generate the code with basic Java Objects like .. References would be represented using List instead of EList, Name would be represented using String instead EString.

Remove UNWANTED ActionSets from RCP

2007-09-20T01:03:00.000-07:00

When we create an RCP ... and add the required MenuManagers using the ActionBarAdvisor Class .. we get lots of ActionSets appear that are not contributed by our plugin .. For e.g. WorkingSet, Software Updates, Open File etc ...

Below is the code snippet that could be used to remove them ... This needs to be pasted in your makeActions of the ActionBarAdvisor Class ... or called from there ...

// creates the list of unwanted actions
ArrayList unWantedActions = new ArrayList();
unWantedActions.add("org.eclipse.ui.WorkingSetActionSet");
unWantedActions.add("org.eclipse.ui.actionSet.openFiles");
unWantedActions.add("org.eclipse.update.ui.softwareUpdates");

ActionSetRegistry reg = WorkbenchPlugin.getDefault().getActionSetRegistry();
IActionSetDescriptor[] actionSets = reg.getActionSets();

for (int i = 0; i < actionSets.length; i++) {
if(unWantedActions.contains(actionSets[i].getId())) {

IExtension ext = actionSets[i] .getConfigurationElement().getDeclaringExtension();
// removes the unwanted action
reg.removeExtension(ext, new Object[]{actionSets[i]});
}
}

What you need to do is .. create a list of Ids of the actionSet that you would want to remove and then remove the actions from the actionRegistry using the IDs in the list ...

Hope this is a useful snippet ...

ActionSet .. a Fact Known Today ..

2007-08-10T02:44:00.000-07:00

Something that i was never aware of ... I used to keep wondering in my trainings that i conduct on Eclipse plugin development why isnt it working ... But i could easily escape saying may be its a bug and never had the time to look into it to find out y isnt it working ... Finally got some time off and also managed to find out the error today .. It is a bug in Eclipse :)) A well documented bug in the Help Contents of Eclipse ...

I am talking bout ActionSets ... I didnt feel like redocumenting what is already documented in Eclipse ... But definitely wanted to blog it as its not known to many ... Please find the extract included as shown below as found in Help contents.

There is an implementation limitation which currently affects action sets. It is important to define the entire menu structure that is to be referenced within the action set. So, for example, if another action set defines a menu called "example", it is not possible to rely on "example" existing. It is necessary to redefine the "example" menu in every action set that wishes to use it.

- Eclipse Help Contents.

What this really means is .. What i always thot was if i wanted a menu under File i could always create an Action and in the menubar path would specify file/additions ... It seems this will not work as explained above. You still need to create a menu with id as file and Label as File and then add this id to the Action menubar path.

Try this yourself ...

1. Create a ActionSet.
2. Add an Action with ActionClass.
3. in the MenubarPath add file/additions and try to run the Application.

Expected output to appear under File .. but it wont ...

Now create a Menu called as File with id as file and then run the Application.
You would find you Action contributed below File.

Hope its useful .. to me it definitely was and thought its worth blogging about.

Fast Views ... Fast ways of Accessing Views ...

2007-08-01T23:03:00.001-07:00

Eclipse offers something called as Fast View to quickly access Views that you want to access.

How and where do i find Fast Views ?
Look at your Status bar in Eclipse .. you would find a icon with a plus. Click on that and you would find the Fast Views available.

This button is another way of seeing the views that are added to Show View under Windows menu.

How can i add a view to Fast View ?
Right Click on the header of the View that you want to add to the Fast View. On Right Click you would get an option Fast View .. Select that and that view would be added to Fast View.

Customisation as a Plugin Developer.
When you create a View of your own using org.eclipse.ui.views ExtensionPoint you would find a property called as FastViewWidthRatio. You just need to specify the float value representation of the percentage of screen it should occupy. For e.g. 25% = 0.25

Try and test .. would get more clarity ...

Sticky Views ...

2007-08-01T22:01:00.000-07:00

Always curious about this feature under the org.eclipse.ui.views extension point, decided to try it out ...

Use of Sticky View
If you want a view to appear in all perspective in a given position irrespective of if its part of the perspective or not ... then you need to use Sticky View.

How to find it ...

Add org.eclipse.ui.views extension point
Right click on it and select New >> Sticky View
A new Extension Element would get added
Select the Extension Element and in the Details Block you would find the properties

id* - You need to specify the ID of the View that you want to turn as Stick.
location - Where should it appear in the Screen (Top, Bottom, Right, Left)
closable - Should the Close Button be available on the View.
moveable - Can the user move it around.

Try this out ... for the ID property provide the Resource Navigator View ID
i.e. org.eclipse.ui.views.ResourceNavigator
And specify some value for the other properties and run the plugin.

Expected Output ... You turn to any perspective you should find Resource Navigator open in the specified location.

Such Sticky features of eclipse are making me stick to it more ... You too enjoi trying out the Stickiness.

Teacher Teacher what is the Spelling for ...

2007-07-04T20:59:00.001-07:00

Whatever may your GRE Score be ... ? Everybody tends to make mistakes when it comes to typing ... Thanks to Word that made the concept of Spell Check so famous ... Thanks to Eclipse to make it available not only on documents but also on your source code editors.

Its a hidden feature for people to explore ... Yes .. Eclipse provides a simple but nice to have feature to have Spell Check enabled on your IDE. Spell check has been available in Eclipse since 3.0.

Here are the following steps to install and get the Spell Check work on your eclipse.

1. Open your preference pages using Window » Preferences » General » Editors » Text Editors » Spelling
2. Check Enable Spell Checking
3. In the Language Section you need to specify the User defined Dictionary

User defined Dictionary is very easy to create .. You need to create a .txt file with one word per line.
You can find a .zip folder that contains a set of User defined Dictionary Files @ http://wordlist.sourceforge.net/

4. Apply the changes and then open a Java Editor ... You should find new Orangish lines appearing in your Comments.

Note :: You may have to restart your eclipse for this change to reflect .. I am not sure for which version is it required.

In Eclipse Europa by default Spell Check is activated and Eclipse by default comes with 2 Dictionaries for English US and English UK.

Content Assist for SpellCheck is available using Ctrl + 1.

For more info look into the following links ...
http://www.bobcongdon.net/blog/2005/01/eclipse-spell-checker.html
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t17453.html