While the Eclipse platform is designed to serve as an open tools platform, it is architected so that its components could be used to build just about any client application. The minimal set of plug-ins needed to build a rich client application is collectively known as the Rich Client Platform.
Applications that don't require a common resource model can be built using a subset of the platform. These rich applications are still based on a dynamic plug-in model, and the UI is built using the same toolkits and extension points. The layout and function of the workbench is under fine-grained control of the plug-in developer in this case.
When we say that the Rich Client Platform is the minimal set of plug-ins needed to build a platform application with a UI, we mean that your application need only require two plug-ins, org.eclipse.ui and org.eclipse.core.runtime, and their prerequisites. However, rich client applications are free to use any API deemed necessary for their feature set, and can require any plug-ins above the bare minimum. Examples include the Help UI, and the Update Manager.
For more details on what is included in the Rich Client Platform, see the RCP FAQ.
The following newsgroups have useful discussions, questions and answers relevant to the development of RCP applications.
If you have a question, please check the RCP FAQ before posting to the newsgroups.
Kindly avoid posting to the developer mailing lists as these are intended for use by the development teams and others participating in the development of Eclipse itself.
To load the browser example source into your workspace, load project org.eclipse.ui.examples.rcp.browser from the Eclipse CVS repository.
Click here for instructions on using CVS with Eclipse.
For instructions on running the example, see the readme file.
To run the example in binary form (last updated June 11, 2004 for the 3.0 RC2 build):
eclipse.exe.
The RCP Text Editor Example is available from the platform-text development resources page.
The following steps will deploy the plugin into the RCP application and activate it by setting some preferences.
<extension
point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.products"
id="product">
<product
name="%productName"
application="org.eclipse.ui.examples.rcp.browser.app">
<property
name="appName"
value="%swtAppName"/>
<property
name="windowImages"
value="icons/eclipse.gif,icons/eclipse32.gif"/>
<property
name="aboutText"
value="%aboutText"/>
<property
name="aboutImage"
value="icons/eclipse_lg.gif"/>
<property
name="preferenceCustomization"
value="r21presentation.ini"/>
</product>
</extension>
eclipse.exe.