Convert Eclipse plug-in to RCP application (next)

In the previous article we added a application extension to a common eclipse plug-in, and the rest of the work was simple enough that you didn't even need to write a single line of code. In Eclipse 3.1, the process of wrapping a plug-in with application into RCP and outputting it is done by creating a product profile (products Configuration).

Select the File->new->other command in the main menu and select a new product profile in the dialog box, which can be built anywhere, and for convenience we put it in the home directory of plug-ins that need to be converted to RCP. The product profile is an XML-formatted file, but Eclipse 3.1 provides an editor interface to edit its contents, so you don't have to remember all the tags as before. This editor is divided into three pages: Overview, configuration, and branding.

First specify the product ID on the overview page, press the "New ..." button to the right of "product ID", enter the ID of the plug-in in the dialog box, the new product ID, and the default application ID, as shown in Figure 1. When you close the dialog box, select a application to run and fill in the product name. Here is an option to choose whether the product is based on plug-in or Feature,feature is a collection of plug-ins, if only include a plug-in, select based on plug-in, if the inclusion of multiple plug-ins, the use of feature can be used to classify these plug-ins by function, easy to manage, It is recommended to use a feature approach, but you have to build feature first.

Figure 1 New Product ID dialog box

Then, come to the configuration page, first add our plugin to the left of the plugin list (if the previous selection based on features, here is the feature list), and then press "Add Required plug-ins" Button lets eclipse automatically add other plug-ins that are dependent. The role of the Config.ini file is to set some variable values, and the RCP program will change some appearance or behavior based on them, for example, where you can specify the docking position of the pivot chart switch (org.eclipse.ui/dock_perspective_bar= left), and so on, you can set some run parameters at the bottom right of the page.

Figure 2 Selecting the desired plugin