[news.eclipse.tools.ve] Re: VE questions - .override files

[Joe Winchester <winchest@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi John,

> 1) Where can I find it? 2) What parses .override files?

BeanInfoClassAdapter.

> 3) How I test if some override file is processed?

What I usually do is put a breakpoint in
protected void applyExtensionDocTo(...);
This will be called for every class and interface that the class being 
edited touches so there is a bit of noise, but just check the JavaClass 
argument each time it gets stopped until it comes across your one.  Then 
debug further to see what's going wrong with your .override.

Common errors I always find are a) that the beaninfo.registrations 
extension does not actually declare the /override folder.  b) there are 
XML errors however these should get put into the .log file and catching 
SAXParseException also helps to find these.

> 4) Where may I start?

Try breakpoints in BeanInfoClassAdapter and also be sure the /override 
file is declared correctly in the plugin.xml

> 5) Which are mechanisms To Extend VE for example (are they only 
> decorators?):
>    -custom gode generation parsing

There are many but unfortunately we don't document them all.  However we 
do use them all, so anything and everything that is done by Swing/SWT or 
RCP is done through extension points.  The best way is to find a class 
that does what you want and look at it.  For example Composite.override 
declares a relationship to children, as does JTabbedPane.override.

What's the scenario you're trying to get working through a .override ? 
If you describe it hopefully it'll help to point you towards useful 
existing .override files to look at and get inspiration from.

> I tried to start with tutorial from Dr Gili Mendel et al., but it seams 
> that it ignores that .override file and throws NPE,

Can you post the stack trace place ?  Is this you running the actually 
finished complete code that throws the NPE or your implementation you 
built following the sample ?  If it's the former this is our bug and we 
need to fix it.

> when it tries to find decorator for "text" property.

You're not the first person to mention this - someone else had the same 
problem.  We'll look into it

Best regards,

Joe Winchester