Activities

org.eclipse.ui.activities

3.0

The org.eclipse.ui.activities extension point is used to declare activities and associated elements. Activities are used by the platform to filter certain plugin contributions from the users view until such a time that they express interest in them. This allows Eclipse to grow dynamically based on the usage pattern of a user.

<!ELEMENT extension (activity , activityRequirementBinding , activityPatternBinding , category , categoryActivityBinding , defaultEnablement)*>

<!ATTLIST extension

id    CDATA #IMPLIED

name  CDATA #IMPLIED

point CDATA #REQUIRED>


<!ELEMENT activity EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST activity

description CDATA #IMPLIED

id          CDATA #REQUIRED

name        CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to define activities. If more than one of these elements exist with the same id attribute, only the last declared element (in order of reading the registry) is considered valid.



<!ELEMENT activityRequirementBinding EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST activityRequirementBinding

requiredActivityId CDATA #REQUIRED

activityId         CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element allows one to bind activities to activities. The relationship is such that if the activityId is ever enabled then the requiredActivityId is enabled as well.



<!ELEMENT activityPatternBinding EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST activityPatternBinding

activityId CDATA #REQUIRED

pattern    CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element allows one to bind activities to patterns.



<!ELEMENT category EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST category

description CDATA #IMPLIED

id          CDATA #REQUIRED

name        CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to define categories. If more than one of these elements exist with the same id attribute, only the last declared element (in order of reading the registry) is considered valid.



<!ELEMENT categoryActivityBinding EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST categoryActivityBinding

activityId CDATA #REQUIRED

categoryId CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element allows one to bind categories to activities.



<!ELEMENT defaultEnablement EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST defaultEnablement

id CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element allows one to specify that a given activity should be enabled by default.



The following is an example of several activity and category definitions as well as associated bindings. 

 
<extension point=
"org.eclipse.ui.activities"
>

  
<activity id=
"com.xyz.Activity"

      description=
"Filters contributions from com.xyz"

   name=
"My Activity"
 />


  
<activity id=
"com.xyz.OtherActivity"

      description=
"Filters other contributions from com.xyz"

   name=
"My Other Activity"
 />

  
<!-- other activity requires activity -->
  
  
<activityRequirementBinding activityId=
"com.xyz.OtherActivity"

   requiredActivityId=
"com.xyz.Activity"
 />

  
<category id=
"com.xyz.Category"

   description=
"com.xyz Activities"

   name=
"My Category"
 />

   
     
<!-- put the activity in the category -->

  
<categoryActivityBinding activityId=
"com.xyz.Activity"

   categoryId=
"com.xyz.Category"
 />

   
     
<!-- bind all contributions from plugin com.xyz -->

  
<activityPatternBinding id=
"com.xyz.Activity"

   pattern=
"com\.xyz/.*"
 />

  
  
<!-- bind my.contribution from plugin com.xyz.other -->

  
<activityPatternBinding id=
"com.xyz.OtherActivity"

   pattern=
"com\.xyz\.other/my.contribution"
 />

   
  
<!-- our activity should be enabled by default -->

  
<defaultEnablement id=
"com.xyz.Activity"
 />

 
</extension>

There is currently no public API for declaring activities or associated elements other than this extension point. The state of activities in the workbench is accessible via org.eclipse.ui.IWorkbench.getActivitySupport(). From here you may query and update the set of currently enabled activities.

There are no "default activities" provided by the workbench. Activities are intended to be defined at the product level, such as the Eclipse SDK, so as to tightly integrate all of the (known) components that product contains.