GEF (Graphical Editor Framework) Eclipse project getting started series (1) --- overview, gefgraphical

GEF (Graphical Editor Framework) Eclipse project getting started series (1) --- overview, gefgraphical

The full name of GEF is Graphical Editor Framework. GEF's Chinese books are basically unavailable on the market. However, many secondary development projects of Eclipse may need to use the GEF technology of Eclipse. GEF is one of Eclipse projects, the famous XMind software (http://www.xmind.net/) is developed based on GEF, as shown in the figure, made out of the interface is very beautiful and flexible, in addition, windowBuilder tool (http://www.eclipse.org/wb) is also developed based on GEF, in addition, a project of Apache BPEL is also developed based on GEF. The above are only three examples. I will not list them one by one if there are many other examples.

Demonstrate the effect of a GEF-based XMind Workspace

Now that we know what GEF can do, how is the GEF framework made up? In other words, what technologies do you need to learn and understand when learning GEF? Let me give you some advice.

The GEF Eclipse project consists of three major departments: Draw2D, Zest, and GEF. Readers may find this strange. Why does the GEF Eclipse project include GEF itself? In fact, it is easy to understand that it is just a name to replace the entire GEF Eclipse project with this part of GEF, just like we sometimes use Beijing to replace China. The following three components are described as follows:

(1) Draw2D

Draw2D is a lightweight drawing framework. The so-called lightweight is relative to heavyweight. Lightweight refers to the images drawn by Draw2D are drawn from pure Java objects, there is no direct connection with the specific operating system resources. The heavyweight meaning is that each SWT's widgets (Component) is an API related to a specific operating system resource. What are the main functions of Draw2D? To put it bluntly, Draw2D is mainly used to display graphic information. Therefore, Draw2D images are displayed in the canvas of SWT. It is worth noting that it does not provide interactive behavior.

(2) Zest

Zest is a framework built on the Draw2D framework. It provides functions similar to Jface (compared with SWT ). Zest can easily bind a Java model with a Draw2D image.

(3) GEF

GEF is also a framework built on the Draw2D framework. It provides a very rich set of APIs that allow users to interact with the graphic interface, such as dragging the canvas, printing, and physical operations on the graphic interface (for example, wrong drawing, cancel or roll back.

In short, the following figure represents the author's words.

Below are some other references:

Http://www.cnblogs.com/bjzhanghao/archive/2005/02/09/103595.html
Http://www.eclipse.org/articles/Article-GEF-Draw2d/GEF-Draw2d.html
Http://wiki.eclipse.org/GEF_Description
Http://wiki.eclipse.org/GEF_Description2

In my subsequent articles, I will introduce Draw2D, Zest, and GEF technologies one by one, and combine them with some practical examples .......