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| <h1>Concepts</h1> | |
| <p>PDE takes advantage of the project structure in the platform. When you use | |
| PDE, you organize your work into projects, folders, and files. PDE looks into | |
| the projects in your workspace and pays special attention to those that have | |
| plug-in or fragment manifest files as their immediate children. If a project has | |
| a plug-in manifest, PDE considers it a plug-in project. In addition, PDE will associate | |
| a special PDE nature with these projects to | |
| be able to attach special PDE builders. (See <a href="../../org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/resAdv_natures.htm">Project natures</a> | |
| for a description of the platform project nature facility).</p> | |
| <p>We know that the platform is based on the concept of <b>plug-ins</b> that | |
| have a clearly defined structure and specification. The goal of PDE is to ensure that you follow | |
| the rules when creating new plug-ins so that they are correctly incorporated by | |
| the platform.</p> | |
| <p> PDE manages plug-ins inside projects. | |
| Each project represents one plug-in and holds folders and files that | |
| define the plug-in and the ways it will interact with the platform. These | |
| plug-ins will be in your workspace and will show up in the resource navigator and other | |
| views that show workspace resources (such as Java Package Explorer).</p> | |
| <h2>Host and run-time</h2> | |
| <p>One of the most important concepts in PDE to understand is the concept of <b>host</b> | |
| and <b>run-time</b> workbench instances. When you start up the workbench, you | |
| will use it to work on your projects that define the plug-ins you are | |
| building. The workbench instance that you are running as you develop | |
| your | |
| plug-in using the PDE and other tools is the <b>host</b> instance. The features available in this instance will | |
| come exclusively from the plug-ins that are installed with your application.</p> | |
| <p> Once you are | |
| happy with your plug-in and want to test it, you can launch another workbench instance, | |
| the <b>run-time</b> instance. This instance will contain the same | |
| plug-ins as the <b>host</b> instance, but will also have the plug-ins you were | |
| working on in the <b>host</b> instance. PDE launcher will take care of merging your | |
| plug-ins with the host plug-ins and creating the run-time instance.</p> | |
| <h2>External vs. workspace plug-ins</h2> | |
| <p>Since the run-time workbench instance will represent a collection of features | |
| provided by plug-ins from two different places (your current workspace and the | |
| original host installation), PDE recognizes these plug-ins as two different | |
| "species." </p> | |
| <ul> | |
| <li><b>External plug-ins</b> are plug-ins that arrived with the basic platform installation | |
| and are simply referenced | |
| from their original location without modification. You can reference them, browse them, view their source and | |
| debug them, but they are considered read-only. </li> | |
| <li><b>Workspace plug-ins</b> are those plug-ins under development in your | |
| host workbench. They are under your control and can be added, deleted | |
| and modified in any way (the exception are binary plug-ins that will be | |
| described later in the guide).</li> | |
| </ul> | |
| <p>External and workspace plug-ins are treated differently by PDE because of | |
| their location. For example, opening the plug-in manifest of a workspace plug-in | |
| will launch an editor on that manifest file in the workspace. The same | |
| operation for an external plug-in will launch an editor on an external URL that | |
| references the plug-in's manifest file in the host install location. </p> | |
| <p>These differences are fairly transparent to PDE users, but should be | |
| understood.</p> | |
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