[Design View / Design Solution]
Write Less Code And Deliver Java Apps Faster With Eclipse 3.0
Base your next application on the Eclipse RCP and you can start thinking about reusing code—and get better cross-platform user interfaces.
DESIGN VIEW is the summary of the complete DESIGN SOLUTION contributed article, which begins on Page 2.
Full article begins on Page 2
Writing desktop applications has always been about compromises. If you want your application to be truly native, you need to select the platform and use its frameworks, tool kits, and low-level application programming interfaces (APIs) to build your application, using whatever programming language(s) it supports. While you'll certainly give up cross-platform portability, you will be able to provide users with the exact look and feel they expect.
But what if you want your application to run on multiple platforms? The most common solution has been to write Java applications that use a Swing user interface. With this approach, you'll gain support for multiple platforms. But you'll lose the use of native user-interface (UI) widgets and dialogs, which will jeopardize the native look and feel that's critical for end-user acceptance. If Java is to be a viable language for desktop applications, we need to be able to write cross-platform Java applications that use a native UI.
This is where Eclipse steps in. While most Java developers are familiar with Eclipse, they tend to think of it simply as a Java integrated development environment (IDE). However, when viewed at that level, Eclipse is unique because it looks like a native application upon whatever platform it is run. If you dig a little deeper, you'll see that the IDE is simply a specific type of application built on top of the Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP), which is part of Eclipse 3.0
The RCP is a platform for building applications. And because the IDE is built on top of the RCP, we have a rather compelling body of evidence that it's both extensible and flexible enough to support the construction of world-class applications with a native UI.
The article presents a step-by-step procedure for building an image viewer on top of an Eclipse RCP framework, including the appropriate code.
HIGHLIGHTS:
Building An Image-Viewer Application
To solve the problem of having scattered photo directories, this article explores building a cross-platform image viewer using Eclipse 3.0.
Getting Started
When building the application, you first must install the appropriate software development kit (SDK), which in this case is one of the Eclipse distributions. Because it will be a Rich Client Platform (RCP) application, the full Eclipse SDK is required (from the Eclipse Web site).
Key Steps
The fundamental steps involved in creating the image viewer are: building the image viewer's core functionality; converting the image viewer to an RCP application; and packaging the image viewer for distribution.
Sidebar: The Case For Eclipse
This sidebar runs down a host of reasons why Eclipse may be the right solution for your application.
Completed Projects View
Figure 7 offers a view of completed development projects, showing all plug-in and feature projects.
Directory Structure
Figure 8 depicts the directory structure, which shows the completed standalone application ready for distribution.
Difficult article to work with. While the ImageViewer source code is readily available from Cheng Dong Li, the two classes from the genuitec package are not available. Thus, there's no way to "easily" construct the source code. Bottom line, these guys have an interesting way of teaching new technologies/ techniques by supplying only half the code.
Adym Lincoln -October 26, 2004
Thanks for the helpful introduction to Eclipse. I am going to have another look at this platform. I have been using NetBeans to develop Java applications but the GUI tools are horrible! Eclipse seems to do a lot more for less.
John P. Taddeo, PE -September 28, 2004
I am always interested in new tools, and how they can be applied to the design process. Recently, these tools are more software and firmware related, so this article is very welcome.
Douglas L Datwyler, PE -September 27, 2004
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