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| <title>Defining intro content</title> |
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| |
| <h2>Defining intro content</h2> |
| |
| <p> |
| Now we can look at the content itself. Content is described in terms of pages. All pages have an <b>id</b> attribute. |
| This is the id that is used when defining the home and standby pages, and other places where there is a reference |
| to a page. Otherwise, the relevant attributes depend on the kind of page that is defined. |
| There are two basic types of pages: |
| </p> |
| <ul> |
| <li><b>Static pages</b> are plain HTML files. These pages use the normal HTML mechanisms to link to other |
| pages. Static pages need not be defined in the config content file, except for the home page. Since the home |
| page is specified by id (<b>home-page-id</b>) in the <b>presentation</b> element, there must be a page definition |
| using that id in the content file. This page need only define a <b>url</b>. All other subelements will be ignored |
| since the HTML page itself will describe the page content. All other HTML intro pages contributed by the plug-in |
| must be included with the plug-in, but do not need to be specified in the content file. HTML files located in other |
| plug-ins or on the web may be referenced also. </li> |
| <li><b>Dynamic pages</b> are described in the XML content file using subelements that describe the content of the |
| page. The subelements are UI items often found in HTML-like pages. Depending on the implementation, these pages |
| will either be dynamically translated to HTML (when the implementation <b>kind</b> is html) or else dynamically |
| created as SWT-based UI forms (when the implementation <b>kind</b> is swt). The following subelements |
| can be defined in a page: |
| <ul> |
| <li>A <b>group</b> is used to group other subelements and define a consistent style across the group.</li> |
| <li>A <b>link</b> defines a link that can be displayed using an image and text. The link can navigate to another |
| page and optionally run an intro action. Actions are specified as commands in the URL.</li> |
| <li>The <b>text</b> and <b>img</b> elements show text and image content.</li> |
| <li>The <b>include</b> element includes a previously defined subelement. The element is referred to by its id. </li> |
| <li>The <b>head</b> element defines additional HTML to be included in the head section of the page |
| when the html implementation is used. </li> |
| <li>The <b>html</b> element defines additional HTML to be included in the body of the page |
| when the html implementation is used.</li> |
| </ul> |
| A <b>title</b> for a page may also be defined. A page may also specify that |
| its content is defined in a separate <b>content</b> file. Breaking up pages into separate |
| files may be useful when performance is a concern, since an intro page's contents won't be initialized until needed. |
| </li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p> |
| The best way to get a feel for the content definition format is to browse the |
| implementations in the Eclipse SDK. The snippet below shows an example of this: |
| </p> |
| |
| <pre> |
| <introContent> |
| <page alt-style="css/root_swt.properties" style="css/root.css" id="root" style-id="page"> |
| <title style-id="intro-header">Welcome to Eclipse Platform</title> |
| <group id="links-background"> |
| <group id="page-links"> |
| <link label="Overview" url="http://org.eclipse.ui.intro/showPage?id=overview" id="overview" style-id="left"> |
| <text>Find out what Eclipse is all about</text> |
| </link> |
| <link label="Tutorials" url="http://org.eclipse.ui.intro/showPage?id=tutorials" id="tutorials" style-id="left"> |
| <text>Let us guide you through Eclipse end-to-end tutorials</text> |
| </link> |
| <link label="Samples" url="http://org.eclipse.ui.intro/showPage?id=samples" id="samples" style-id="right"> |
| <text>Explore Eclipse development through code samples</text> |
| </link> |
| <link label="Whats New" url="http://org.eclipse.ui.intro/showPage?id=news" id="news" style-id="right"> |
| <text>Find out what is new in this release</text> |
| </link> |
| </group> |
| </group> |
| ... |
| </pre> |
| |
| <p> |
| Elements on a page can also be <b>filteredFrom</b> a particular implementation. This allows page designers |
| to design with particular platforms in mind. There are many more powerful attributes that |
| can be used when describing a page and its contents. See the extension point documentation for |
| <b><a href="../reference/extension-points/org_eclipse_ui_intro_config.html">org.eclipse.ui.intro.config</a></b> |
| and its associated <a href="../reference/extension-points/introContentFileSpec.html">intro content file format specification</a> for a complete reference of |
| valid elements, subelements, and their attributes. |
| </p> |
| |
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