[news.eclipse.newcomer] Re: MVC philosophical question

[Eric Rizzo <eclipse-bugs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/10/09 5:14 PM, Ric Wright wrote:
> I have plugin that supports physics modeling. It implements a PDE like
> editor that hosts a FormEditor with multiple pages (overview, datasets,
> multiple graphics views, etc.).  One can of course have several projects
> open at once in different tabs, just as one can have several PDE editors
> open.  However, there are several Eclipse entities that are effectively
> static, e.g. I have a VCR-like control bar that allows one to
> start/stop/pause the current model. But that bar implements an actionSet
> through a IWorkbenchWindowActionDelegate.
>
> Question is, what is the proper way for such a delegate to know WHICH of the
> currently open editors is the active one?  At present, the editor with the
> focus populates a field in the plugin's activator and the currently active
> editor-object can be fetched from the delegate via a static member in the
> plugin's activator.  This doesn't feel very nice to me though.

The delegate (or any component, really) can get the active editor part 
with a call like this:
PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow().getActivePage().getActiveEditor()

I'm not sure of the ramifications of doing that in a multi-workbench 
(ie, multiple windows open from the same Eclipse instance), so you 
should read the API docs on each of those methods.

Hope this helps,
Eric