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| <title>PDE Tips and Tricks</title> |
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| <body> |
| |
| <h2>Tips and Tricks</h2> |
| |
| |
| <table border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="0"> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Show Command Line button in PDE Launch Configuration</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| You can view the command line used for launching the application by clicking the <b>Show Command Line</b> button on the PDE launch configuration dialog. |
| <p> |
| <img src="images/pde_show_command_line.png" alt=""> |
| </p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Disable API analysis builder</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| You can disable the API analysis builder on the <b>Plug-in Development</b> preference page. |
| <p> |
| <img src="images/pde-disable-analysis-builder.png" alt=""> |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Layout Spy tool</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| To debug SWT layouts, you can activate the Layout Spy tool by using the shortcut <b>Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9</b> from any window. |
| <p> |
| <img src="images/layout-spy.png" alt=""> |
| </p> |
| <p>Usage:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Click <b>Select Control</b> then click the control you want to inspect.</li> |
| <li>Enable <b>Show overlay</b> and navigate the widget hierarchy until you find a |
| control whose boundary is correct (the red rectangle) and whose child's boundary |
| is incorrect (the yellow rectangle).</li> |
| <li>Look at the results of computeSize. If the result of computeSize is correct, |
| the problem is in the parent layout or its attributes. Otherwise, the problem |
| is in the child widget.</li> |
| </ul> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Change problem severity</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| You can configure the severity of an API tools problem or PDE compiler problem by invoking the <b>Quick Fix</b> (<b>Ctrl+1</b>) which opens the |
| corresponding preference page and highlights the configurable problem. |
| <p> |
| <img src="images/pde-configure-problem-pde-compiler.png" alt=""> |
| </p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Workspace plug-ins overriding target plug-ins</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| On the Plug-in Development preference page, there is an option to specify if workspace plug-ins should override target platform plug-ins |
| with the same id. By default, this option is enabled. When disabled, all plug-in versions from workspace and target platform will |
| be used and for a plug-in id, the best available plug-in will be chosen. |
| <p> |
| <img src="images/workspace-plugins-override-target.png" alt=""> |
| </p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Support for OSGi Declarative Services Annotations</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| OSGi Declarative Services provide a powerful mechanism for developing complex, service-oriented |
| applications. With proper tooling, annotations added to Declarative Services make it easy |
| to generate and maintain the required component descriptor files. |
| <p> |
| When enabled, PDE automatically generates and updates Declarative Services component |
| descriptor files from appropriately annotated Java source. This is done without requiring |
| any additional builder to be configured in your project. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| When you annotate your component implementation classes with <code>@Component</code>, and any |
| reference bind methods with <code>@Reference</code>, PDE will validate your annotations |
| and generate the corresponding component descriptor files. Any errors discovered during validation |
| are highlighted and reported. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| In addition, PDE also maintains the project's MANIFEST.MF and build.properties file |
| -- generated component descriptor files are automatically added to the manifest |
| and included in the build. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| To enable this feature, go to <b>Preferences</b> or <b>Project Properties > Plug-in Development > DS Annotations</b> |
| and check <b>Generate descriptors from annotated sources</b>. |
| </p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Convert API Tools Javadoc tags to annotations</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| Plug-ins using API Tools can add restrictions to API Java types (such as No Reference, No Extend) |
| using Javadoc tags or annotations. It is recommended that projects use annotations, so PDE |
| provides a conversion wizard that will replace the tags with the equivalent PDE annotations. |
| <p> |
| The wizard is available by right clicking on an API Tools enabled plug-in project and selecting |
| <b>Plug-in Tools > Convert API Tools Javadoc Tags</b>. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| A list of the available restrictions is available on the API Tools |
| <a href="https://wiki.eclipse.org/PDE/API_Tools/Restrictions" target="_blank">wiki page</a>. |
| </p> |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Show the current target platform in status bar</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| If you regularly switch between target platforms, PDE provides an option to show the current target |
| platform in the status bar. On the <b>Plug-in Development</b> preference page, select |
| <b>Show current target platform in status bar</b>. The status bar entry will show the name of |
| the active target definition and will show an error icon if there are problems with the target. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Find a feature by entering a plug-in name in the feature selection dialog</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| When adding a feature to a product, feature or launch configuration, you can enter the name of a plug-in in the filter text box |
| of the feature selection dialog. Features that include that plug-in will match the filter and be displayed. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Reload button in target editor</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| In scenarios where the target editor is left in inconsistent state due to issues like unstable network connection and |
| it is impossible to resolve the condition without manually editing the target editor file, you can use the <b>Reload</b> button in the <b>Locations</b> section of <b>Target editor</b>. |
| It clears the cached p2 profile and then resolves the target. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Set default preference values for your product</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| In order to set default preference values for your product, instead of manually adding the preferences to product's customization file, you can use the |
| <b>Convert Preferences</b> wizard in the <b>Customization</b> section of your <b>Product editor</b>. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Create an API Baseline from a Target Definition</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| To avail API tooling functionalities for <b>any target definition</b>, you can create an API Baseline in the <b>Plug-in Development > API Baselines</b> preference page. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Quickly search for any plug-in artifact</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| Use the <b>Open Plug-in Artifact</b> dialog to quickly find and open plug-in artifacts. Search |
| by the name of the plug-in, feature or product, or search for a specific package, extension point |
| or extension. The icons can be used to see whether the artifact is available in the workspace or |
| if it comes from the target platform. You can press <b>Ctrl-Shift-A</b> to open the dialog. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>To clean or not to clean</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%">When you create a new runtime |
| workbench launch configuration, PDE presets the Program Arguments on the |
| launch configuration to include a -clean argument. |
| <p>This -clean argument clears all runtime-cached data in your runtime |
| workbench from one invocation to the next to ensure that all the changes |
| made in your host workbench, e.g. new Java packages were added to a plug-in |
| project, etc., are picked up when you launch a runtime workbench.</p> |
| <p>This clearing of the cache may hinder performance if your target platform |
| contains a large number of plug-ins. </p> |
| <p>Therefore, if you're in a situation where your target platform has a |
| large number of plug-ins and you're at a stage where you are not actively |
| adding/removing packages from your plug-in projects, you could remove the |
| -clean argument from the launch configuration to improve startup time.</p></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"><b>Importing with linking</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%">Importing external plug-ins and |
| fragments can be time consuming and may result in large workspaces, |
| depending on the content of the plug-ins being imported. Therefore, |
| the 'Import External Plug-ins and Fragments' wizard gives you the option to |
| import with linking. This means that the import operation will not |
| copy the resources being imported into your workspace. It will simply |
| create links to the files being imported. You will be able to browse |
| these linked resources, as if they had been copied into your workspace. |
| However, they are physically not there on your file system, so you will not |
| be able to modify them. Beware of operations that depend on files |
| being physically in your workspace, as they will not work on linked |
| resources.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%" height="112"><b>Templates</b></td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%" height="112">For a quick start, PDE provides |
| several template plug-ins that will generate a plug-in with one or more |
| fully-working extensions. In addition, if at any point, you would like |
| to add a new extension from the template list (without having to generate a |
| plug-in), you could access these extension templates directly from the |
| manifest editor. From the 'Extensions' page of the editor, click |
| 'Add...'. In the wizard that comes up, select Extension Templates in |
| the left pane and choose the template of choice in the right pane.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="left" height="280"><b>Plug-in dependency extent</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" valign="top" align="left" height="280">If you have ever looked at the |
| list of plug-ins that your plug-in depends on and wondered why your plug-in |
| needs a particular plug-in X, now you can easily find out why. |
| <p>The <b>Compute Dependency Extent </b>operation |
| found on the context menu in several contexts (including manifest file |
| Dependencies page and Plug-in Dependencies view) performs a combined Java and |
| plug-in search to find all Java types and extension points provided by |
| plug-in X which are referenced |
| by your plug-in. The results will be displayed in the Search view. When a type is selected in the Search results view, the <b>References |
| in <i>MyPlugIn</i></b> action in the context menu searches for the places |
| in the plug-in where the selected type is referenced. </p> |
| <p>If the |
| search returns 0 results, you should definitely remove plug-in X from your |
| list of dependencies, as it is not being used at all, and it would just slow |
| class loading.</p> |
| <p>The <b>Compute Dependency Extent</b> is also useful to check if you are |
| using internal (non-API) classes from plug-in X, which might not be |
| desirable.</p></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="left" height="112"><b>Finding unused dependencies</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" valign="top" align="left" height="112">Minimizing a plug-in's number of |
| dependencies is certain to improve performance. As your plug-in |
| evolves, its list of dependencies might become stale, as it might be still |
| containing references to plug-ins that it no longer needs. A quick way |
| to check that all dependencies listed by your plug-in are actually used by |
| the plug-in is to run the 'Find Unused Dependencies' utility, which is |
| available through the context menu of the 'Dependencies' page of PDE's |
| manifest editor.</td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td width="20%" valign="top" align="left" height="80"><b>Extending the Java |
| search scope</b></td> |
| <td width="80%" valign="top" align="left" height="80">Java Search is limited to projects |
| in your workspace and external jars that these projects reference. If |
| you would like to add more libraries from external plug-ins into the search: |
| open the <b>Plug-ins View</b>, select a plug-in and choose <b>Add to Java Workspace Scope</b> |
| from the context menu. This is handy for remaining |
| aware of other plug-ins that depend on ones you're working on. |
| <p>On the <b>Plug-in Development</b> preference page you can also turn on |
| <b>Include all plug-ins from target in Java workspace scope</b>, which will add every |
| plug-in in your target platform to the search scope.</p></td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"> |
| <b>Creating a Rich Client Application</b> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| The |
| <a class="command-link" href='javascript:executeCommand("org.eclipse.ui.cheatsheets.openCheatSheet(cheatSheetId=org.eclipse.pde.rcpapp)")'> |
| <img src="PLUGINS_ROOT/org.eclipse.help/command_link.svg" alt="Open the RCP cheat sheet"><strong>Creating a Rich Client Application</strong></a> |
| cheat sheet will guide you through the individual steps to create a plug-in, |
| define a plug-in based product, customize a product, export a Rich Client Platform (RCP) |
| application and define a feature-based product using the Plug-in Development Environment (PDE). |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| <tr> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="20%"> |
| <b>Creating an Eclipse Plug-in</b> |
| </td> |
| <td valign="top" align="left" width="80%"> |
| The |
| <a class="command-link" href='javascript:executeCommand("org.eclipse.ui.cheatsheets.openCheatSheet(cheatSheetId=org.eclipse.pde.helloworld)")'> |
| <img src="PLUGINS_ROOT/org.eclipse.help/command_link.svg" alt="Open the hello world cheat sheet"><strong>Creating an Eclipse Plug-in</strong></a> |
| cheat sheet will guide you through the individual steps to create a plug-in, a plug-in extension, |
| a feature and an update site using the Plug-in Development Environment (PDE). |
| It will also demonstrate how to install and uninstall a feature using Install/Update. |
| </td> |
| </tr> |
| </table> |
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