Eclipse 4.0and e4

Chris AniszczykPrincipal Software Engineerzx@redhat.comhttp://aniszczyk.orghttp://twitter.com/caniszczyk

Howdy!• Hack Eclipse/OSGi/Git• Evangelist at Red Hat• Involved heavily at Eclipse

– Eclipse Foundation Board of Directors– Co-lead PDE and EGit

• Hacking on open source for a decade– Gentoo Linux, Eclipse, Fedora...

• I like running (5K @ ~18min)

Agenda

Why e4?

Eclipse 3.X and e4

e4 workbench model

Styling and Services

Compatibility Layer

Conclusion and Q&A

Lexicone4 is an Eclipse.org project for platform-related incubation, it’s not a product!

Eclipse 4.0 is a release that contains some technology from the e4 project

Why e4?• Innovate or become irrelevant• Use e4 technologies as a

basis for Eclipse 4.X (some will show up in the 3.x stream)

• Engage the open source community

• Build a better Eclipse– Make it more flexible– Prepare for the web– Dynamic languages– Fix our mistakes

Eclipse Competition...

Why change?

“We’ve already built all our plug-ins.

The most important thing is don’t break us.”

(Yes, there is a compatibility layer.)

Eclipse is mature and huge...

8

Eclipse Competition...

Francois Schnell, http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchy/30217773/

Foundations need to evolve...

Eclipse 4.0 SDKEarly Adopter Release

July 2010

11

12

e4 ExampleApplications

So, what’s wrong with Eclipse 3.X?

Problems with Eclipse 3.x

• Complex• Lots of API• Platform functionality

via singletons• Not easy to test• Not a consistent way to

define the UI• UI makes assumptions,

e.g. Editors / Views• Easy Skinning

• The browser is more powerful now... RIAs...

8

If only Eclipse application development would be easier...

Eclipse e4 – Building blocks

Declarative Styling

Modeled Workbench

Rendering Engine

Dependency Injection

IEclipseContext

Core Services

The Modeled Workbench

The e4 Workbench ModelEach application has its live model... think of the browser DOM...

• Built using EMF• Workbench window

– Menu with menu items – Window Trim, e.g.

toolbar with toolbar items

– Parts Sash Container• Parts

– Part Stack (CTabFolder)• Parts

– Handlers– Key Bindings– Commands

The Model is FlexibleNo distinction between View/ Editor

Perspectives are optional

Stack / Sash are optional

Several windows easily possible

Flexible Toolbars

Parts in e4

Plain Old Java Objects (POJO‘s)

Before e4... inheritance ruled...

VIEW

VIEWPART

WORKBENCHPART

EVENTMANAGER

OBJECT

How is this model translated into UI components?

Model and UI Renderers

• The Workbench model is independent of a specific UI toolkit

I don’t care who draws me

Model

RenderersRenderer Factory

Eclipse default is the SWT Renderer

Can be selected at Startup via parameter

RenderersWidget RendererRenderer Factory

Returns for every model element

Widget Renderer• Each UI elements gets a renderer • Renderer manage Lifecycle of the UI-

Element– Creation– Model to widget binding– Rendering– Disposal

e4 and Styling

Styling in Eclipse 3.x

• UI styling via– The Presentation API– Custom Widgets

• Very limited

In reality all RCP apps look like the an IDE

Eclipse 3.X - IDE feeling

Eclipse e4 – CSS Styling

Example from Kai Toedter

Some elements cannot currently not be styled:

• Menu bar background• Table headers

e4 supports theme switching during runtime

How to enable CSS StylingProperty "applicationCSS” in extension point org.eclipse.core.runtime.products

<extension id="product" point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.products"> <product application="org.eclipse.e4.ui.workbench.swt.application" name="E4 Contacs Demo"> <property name="applicationCSS" value="platform:/plugin/contacts/css/dark.css"> </property> </product></extension>

Example CSSLabel { font: Verdana 8px; color: rgb(240, 240, 240);}

Table { background-color: gradient radial #575757 #101010 100%; color: rgb(240, 240, 240); font: Verdana 8px;}

ToolBar { background-color: #777777 #373737 #202020 50% 50%; color: white; font: Verdana 8px;}

• Java

Label label = new Label(parent, SWT.NONE); label.setData("org.eclipse.e4.ui.css.id", "SeparatorLabel");

• CSS

#SeparatorLabel { color: #f08d00;}

Assign custom attributes

The e4 Programming Model

Dependency Injection• Inversion of control: The necessary

functionality is injected into the class

Java Class

Dependency Injection in e4

• JSR 330 compatible injection implementation (think Google Guice)– @javax.inject.Inject – Field,

Constructor and Method injection– @javax.inject.Named – Specify a custom

qualifier to context object (default is fully qualified classname of the injected type)

• e4 specific annotations... @Optional

public class ListView {

@Inject private IEclipseContext context; @Inject private Logger logger;

@Inject public ListView(Composite parent) { // ...

Services are injected via the the e4 framework

Java Class

CODE EXAMPLESrs-photo, http://www.flickr.com/photos/rs-foto/2129343084/sizes/l/

4.x

3.x

Access preference values

IPreferenceStore store = IDEWorkbenchPlugin.getDefault() .getPreferenceStore();

boolean saveBeforeBuild = store .getBoolean(SAVE_BEFORE_BUILD);

@Inject@Preference(SAVE_BEFORE_BUILD)boolean saveBeforeBuild;

4.x

3.x

Associate help context with control

getSite() .getWorkbenchWindow() .getWorkbench() .getHelpSystem().setHelp( viewer.getControl(), some_id);

@Inject

IWorkbenchHelpSystem helpSystem;

...

helpSystem.setHelp( viewer.getControl(), some_id);

Services

Eclipse Application Services (“Twenty Things”)

Long-running operations

Progress reporting Error handling Navigation model Resource management Status line Drag and drop Undo/Redo Accessing preferences

Editor lifecycle Receiving input Producing selection Standard dialogs Persisting UI state Logging Interface to help

system Menu contributions Authentication Authorization

Don‘t forget: OSGi services are also available via dependency injection

Compatibility Layer

Compatibility Layer

• Compatibility layer centers around org.eclipse.ui.workbench– Contains code to host 3.x API on e4

• Note: The 3.x workbench API with some exceptions...– org.eclipse.ui.presentations– org.eclipse.ui.themes– Activities and Capabilities

• API clean plug-ins will run fine

Eclipse 4.0 SDK

Thanks for listening!For further questions:caniszczyk@gmail.comhttp://aniszczyk.orghttp://twitter.com/caniszczyk

Where to go from hereEclipse e4 Website

http://www.eclipse.org/e4

Eclipse e4 Wikihttp://wiki.eclipse.org/E4

Eclipse e4 Whitepaper http://www.eclipse.org/e4/resources/e4-whitepaper.php

Eclipse 4.1 will most likely shipas part of the Indigo release...

License & Acknowledgements• This work is licensed under:

– http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/de/deed.en_US

• Thank you...– Boris Bokowski, IBM– Tom Schindl, BestSolution– Kai Tödter, Siemens AG– Lars Vogel, SAP AG