[platform-ui-dev] Dynamic UI from Equinox

[Woody Huang <ywh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In Equinox, we've been looking at how the workbench can be made dynamic. We have been able to make incremental and non-intrusive changes to org.eclipse.ui.workbench to make ui extensions responsive to plugin life-cycle changes in a dynamic manner. Currently the latest dynamc ui (org.eclipse.ui.workbench) is available from the Equinox repo. This version is based on the Eclipse I20031113 build. A binary download will be made available from Equinox download site soon. 

If you are interested in seeing dynamic UI in action, you can run the following scenario:

1. start a new runtime workbench with the new org.eclipse.ui.workbench from Equinox. Make sure -console is on (in program arguments)

2. when the new workbench is up, on the console view, park cursor on the first position of the first empty line to activate the command interpreter.

3. from command interpreter, type status and return to find out the bundle id for  the jdt.ui plugin

4. from command interpreter,  type uninstall id# (where # is the bundle id for jdt.ui)

5. go back to the new workbench and you will see that all visible ui extensions (perspectives, views, new project wizard, etc.) for jdt.ui are gone

6. from command interpreter, type install reference:fie:<path-of-plugins>.org.eclipse.jdt.ui_3.0.0 and return, you should get a bundle id

7. from command interpreter, type start id# where # is the bundle id for jdt.ui

8. now go to the new workbench and you will see that ui extensions for jdt.ui are all back in the workbench


Let me know if you need help or have any questions. Thanks.

Woody Huang
IBM T.J. Watson Reserach Center
30 Saw Mill River Road, H0-C23
Hawthorne, NY 10532
(914) 784-7523