[Basic Concept]
Eclipse RCP allows developers to use the Eclipse platform to create flexible and extensible desktop applications.
Eclipse is build upon a plugin architecture . Plugins are the smallest deployable and installable software components of Eclipse.
A plugin is a collection of files and a configuration file (MANIFEST.MF) which describes the plugin and its dependencies. The following picture show the content of an example plugin.
An Eclipse RCP application typically uses:
>The OSGi runtime provides the framework to run the modular application.
>SWT is the standard UI component library used by Eclipse and JFace provides some convenient API on top of SWT.
>The workbench provides the application frame in which all other UI components are displayed.
[Some relevent concepts]
>OSGi is a specification of a service and module platform in Java at runtime.
The OSGi specification defines how Eclipse plugins defines:
1)their API - public classes which can be used by other plugins
2)their dependencies - package or plugins which are required for the plugin to run correctly
>Eclipse Equinox is currently the reference implementation of the OSGi specification.
Eclipse Equinox is the runtime environment on which the Eclipse IDE and Eclipse RCP application are based.
Eclipse the smallest unit of modularization is a plugin . The terms plugin and bundle are (almost) interchangable. An Eclipse plugin is also an OSGi bundle and vice versa. Eclipse Equinox extends the concept of bundles with the concept of extension points .
[Main components of RCP]
The minimal required plugins to create and run an minimal Eclipse RCP application (with UI) are the two plugins "org.eclipse.core.runtime" and "org.eclipse.ui".
Necessary elements:
>Main program - A RCP main application class implements the interface "IApplication". This class can be viewed as the equivalent to the main method for standard Java application. Eclipse expects that the application class is defined via the extension point "org.eclipse.core.runtime.application".
>A Perspective - defines the layout of your application. Must be declared via the extension point "org.eclipse.ui.perspective".
>Workbench Advisor- invisible technical component which controls the appearance of the application (menus, toolbars, perspectives, etc)
Configuration files:
>MANIFEST.MF - contains the OSGi configuration information.
>plugin.xml - Information about the extensions and extension points