Slides: Plugins
Experts: Wasim Bari
Contact: Tobias Rho

• Eclipse is a Collection of Plug-ins With EXTENSIBLE architecture.
• Plug-in is the smallest unit of Functionality in Eclipse.
• Plug-ins are Loaded on Demand.
• Plug-in Development Environment (PDE) assists in plug-in Life Cycle.
• Plug-in Provides Extension Points for EXTENSION.

• Remark: Activator is the class in your plug-in that gets notified, when your plug-in gets started or stopped.

This topic introduces the Eclipse Plug-in Architecture. It provides guidelines for the use of extension points and preference page editing and a general idea how to develop views and editors in Eclipse.

Building GUIs for Eclipse: SWT and JFace

• Developing Eclipse plug-ins
• Platform Plug-in Developer Guide (Eclipse Help)
• Creating an Eclipse View
• Simplifying Preference Pages with Field Editors
• Building custom text editors

• http://www.eclipse.org/eclipse/presentation/eclipse-slides.ppt
• http://www.eclipse.org/documentation/

Tip for the “Create a Hello World SWT application”: You find the required download on http://www.eclipse.org via “Download” → “By Project” → “Eclipse Platform” → “3.3.2” (your version) → “SWT binary and source”