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| <title>Welcome</title> |
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| |
| <h2>Welcome</h2> |
| |
| <p>Welcome (also referred to as Intro) support is a set of extension points that |
| control the initial user experience of a product or rich client application. |
| These extension points allow plug-ins to define specialized pages that introduce a |
| platform product to new users. The Intro pages are shown the first time a |
| product is started guiding users into discovering a product's |
| functionality. An Intro can be anything from a single page displaying a demo video, to multiple |
| pages that are extensible and follow the Eclipse platform's pluggable architecture. |
| </p> |
| |
| <p>Intro extensions define a class which extends |
| the abstract class |
| org.eclipse.ui.part.IntroPart which is responsible for painting the contents of |
| the screen. An IntroPart shares some similarities with views and editors, which |
| are also Workbench parts. When the workbench initializes, it creates an |
| intro site that reserves space for the intro page. The intro part implementation |
| for the site is determined using product configuration information. Once an |
| intro part is shown, it can move between two modes: </p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>in <b>full mode</b>, the intro part takes over the main workbench area.</li> |
| <li>in <b>standby mode</b>, the intro part moves to the side, allowing the current |
| perspective to remain visible.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p>It is possible to write an intro part from |
| scratch but there are advantages to using the customizable intro part described |
| below. </p> |
| |
| <h3>The Customizable Intro Part</h3> |
| |
| <p>The intro part used by the Eclipse Platform |
| and SDK is based on the class org.eclipse.ui.intro.config.CustomizableIntroPart. |
| An intro of this kind will be based on a configuration which can be extended by |
| individual plugins. The configuration uses an xml file contributed using the |
| extension point org.eclipse.ui.intro.config to define the intro content. |
| Individual plugins can extend the configuration using the |
| org.eclipse.ui.intro.configExtension. extension point. The customizable intro |
| part has several benefits:</p> |
| |
| <ul> |
| <li>The content is separated from the |
| presentation.</li> |
| <li>Individual plugins can extend the intro |
| content using the org.eclipse.ui.intro.configExtension. extension point.</li> |
| <li>The presentation uses HTML allowing css |
| to be used to set the background, layout the elements and style the text. for</li> |
| <li>On systems where a browser is unavailable the intro content will be presented using SWT.</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <h3>Universal Intro</h3> |
| |
| <p>Universal Intro is an intro configuration based on the customizable intro |
| part and is used by the Eclipse Platform and SDK. The Universal Intro configuration provides a standardized set of pages and |
| anchors which can be extended by other plugins. Use of Universal Intro is |
| encouraged because it allows a plugin to contribute intro content to any product |
| that uses Universal Intro. Without Universal Intro it would be necessary to |
| write a config extension for each intro configuration that a plugin might |
| possibly contribute to.</p> |
| |
| <h3>Related Topics</h3> |
| |
| <p><a href="ua_intro_defining.htm">Defining an Intro Part</a><br> |
| <a href="ua_intro_cust_intro_part.htm">Using the Customizable Intro Part</a><br> |
| <a href="ua_intro_universal.htm">Universal Intro</a></p> |
| |
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