e4 Contacts Demo

Recently I contributed my e4 contacts demo to the e4 (e4 = Eclipse 4) cvs repository. Goal of the demo is to give good examples for e4 RCP related topics, like

• CSS based styling and theming
• Modeling the application UI skeleton
  (menu, toolbar, parts, commands, handlers, …)
• Data binding everywhere
• Product branding (not started yet)
• Co-hosting using p2 (self-update, not started yet)

Here is a screenshot of the application using a dark css based theme:

And here the same application using a brighter css based theme:

The styling is pretty simple right now, I will enhance it using textures and gradients as soon as these features are implemented. The next screenshot shows the EMF based UI model of the application (workbench) skeleton:

Modeling the application workbench UI like this is very easy and straight forward. Rather than dealing with complex layouts programmatically or using extension points you can get a decent application skeleton quickly.

How to get and run the demo?

• Install the latest Eclipse 3.5 SDK (currently 3.5RC1)
• Install the latest EMF SDK
• Open the cvs repository:
  host:dev.eclipse.org
  root:cvsroot/eclipse
  user:anonymous
• Check out the project e4/releng
• Import the following team project sets
  form releng/org.eclipse.e4.ui.releng:
  e4.ui.psf
  e4.ui.examples.psf
  e4.ui.css.psf
• After having imported all the necessary projects from cvs, open project org.eclipse.e4.demo.contacts/contacts.product
• In the Overview tab of the configuration editor, click “Launch an Eclipse Application”
• Now the contacts demo shoud start with the dark css theming

Have Fun!

From http://www.toedter.com/blog