Platform UI Component Development Resources
List title arrow Bugs
List title arrow Documents
List title arrow Plugins
The Platform UI component consists of the following plug-ins:
  • org.eclipse.jface
    • Generic UI framework on top of SWT, providing support for actions, viewers, dialogs, wizards, property pages, long-running operations, etc.
  • org.eclipse.ui
    • The main plug-in for the Rich Client Platform UI, which provides the Workbench and its extension points.
      This re-exports the SWT, JFace and org.eclipse.ui.workbench plug-ins. Plug-ins building on top of the Workbench should depend on this plug-in. They need not depend directly on SWT or JFace, and should not depend directly on org.eclipse.ui.workbench.
  • org.eclipse.ui.workbench
    • This plug-in contains the bulk of the Workbench implementation, and depends on JFace, SWT, and Core Runtime. It cannot be used independently from org.eclipse.ui. Workbench client plug-ins should not depend directly on this plug-in.
  • org.eclipse.ui.views
    • The Outline and Properties views. This plug-in can be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.cheatsheets
    • A Cheat Sheet guides the user through a long-running, multi-step task. This plug-in can be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.console
    • The generic Console view. This plug-in can be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.forms
    • Forms-based control library and editor framework. This plug-in can be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.intro
    • Initial welcome experience and guided assistance. This plug-in can be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.ide
    • Provides the main application entry-point for the Eclipse IDE. It instantiates and configures the Workbench for use in the Eclipse IDE. This plug-in is not designed to be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.win32
    • Windows-specific support for OLE embedded editors. This is part of the Eclipse IDE and is not designed to be reused in other RCP applications.
  • org.eclipse.ui.examples.rcp.browser
    • The web browser example RCP application.
  • org.eclipse.ui.examples.multipageeditor
    • The multi-page editor example.
  • org.eclipse.ui.examples.propertysheet
    • The property sheet example.
  • org.eclipse.ui.examples.readmetool
    • The readme tool example.
  • org.eclipse.ui.tests
    • JUnit tests for Eclipse UI.
  • org.eclipse.ui.tests.rcp
    • JUnit tests for the RCP UI APIs.

For more details on the Rich Client Platform and other components available for use in RCP applications, see the RCP Home Page and the RCP FAQ.

List title arrow Mailing Lists

The following mailing list is for use by the Platform UI team members, and other developers contributing directly to the development of the Platform UI components. For general questions on how use the Platform UI components, please use the eclipse.platform or eclipse.platform.rcp newsgroups instead.

List title arrow Patches
  • None
List title arrow Utilities
  • Instrumentation Framework
    • The instrumentation framework allows developers and usability experts to collect information about how people are using their applications by sending back periodic reports to a central server.

  • org.eclipse.ui.tools.nl
    • A tool that takes existing nl catalogs and generates translations for the current version of Eclipse. Existing translations are kept and any properties without a translation are given a string appended with characters appropriate to that locale.

  • Heap Status
    • The Heap Status plug-in shows the current Java heap usage in the status line (total heap and amount used). A button allows you to force a garbage collect. It includes a preference page (Window > Preferences > Workbench > Memory Indicator) which lets you turn it on and off. This plug-in works on Eclipse 2.1, 3.0, 3.0.1 and 3.1.

      The Heap Status plug-in can be obtained via the Platform UI team's update site.
      Use Help > Software Updates > Find and Install > Search for new features to install > New Remote Site, and give the following as the URL.

      http://dev.eclipse.org/viewcvs/index.cgi/%7Echeckout%7E/platform-ui-home/updates

      When prompted, choose Yes to restart. If you don't see the status indicator in the status line, or if the preference page is missing, restart eclipse with the -clean command line option.

      Please report any problems to the Platform UI component in bugzilla.

      Screen shot:

      screen shot of Heap Status memory indicator

  • org.eclipse.ui.performance.tools
    • The performance tools contains the performance view that was available during the 3.1 cycle. This plug-in includes a .options file that enables the collection of performance failures and has thresholds for a series of performance statistic collection in the platform UI when in debug mode. To enable this performance collection copy the .options file to the directory you launch Eclipse from and run Eclipse with the -debug option.
    • See Core performance page for details on how to define your own performance stats.
List title arrow Curry

Here in Ottawa, life revolves around curry. There is a restaurant not to far from our lab that serves cheap curry that's pretty good. It's called Shaan Curry House (1489 Merivale Road, 228-9759). We love them, and we think they love-hate us. We make large orders. The largest to date occurred on October 5, 2005, and had 30 individual orders. To put this in perspective, the dining area in Shaan Curry House is maybe the size of a master bedroom in a house.

A curry is seven dollars but we charge eight for the order. The surplus dollar goes to our charity fund, the receipient of which changes every three or four months. The profits from our curry orders and our chocolate drive often reaches several hundred dollars by the time comes to switch charities.

Because the people in our lab rarely if ever have exact change for orders we've come up with a way by which we don't need to worry about paying for curry on a weekly basis. Our solution is to offer curry cash. This cash comes in the form of a poker chip emblazened with "UI" that may be exchanged for one curry. The cost, of course, is eight dollars. This allows people to pay for weeks worth of food up front and also creates a twisted little economey where favours are traded for poker chips.

For a time we tried tracking our orders but we enevitably fell behind. Some subset of our history can be found here.