Views

Identifier:

org.eclipse.ui.views

Description:

This extension point is used to define additional views for the workbench. A view is a visual component within a workbench page. It is typically used to navigate a hierarchy of information (like the workspace), open an editor, or display properties for the active editor. The user can make a view visible from the View menu or close it from the view local title bar.

In order to reduce the visual clutter in the Show View Dialog, views should be grouped using categories.

Configuration Markup:

<!ELEMENT extension (category | view | stickyView)*>

<!ATTLIST extension

point CDATA #REQUIRED

id    CDATA #IMPLIED

name  CDATA #IMPLIED>

• point - a fully qualified identifier of the target extension point

• id - an optional identifier of the extension instance

• name - an optional name of the extension instance

<!ELEMENT category EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST category

id             CDATA #REQUIRED

name           CDATA #REQUIRED

parentCategory CDATA #IMPLIED>

• id - a unique name that will be used to identify this category

• name - a translatable name that will be used in the UI for this category

• parentCategory - an optional path composed of category IDs separated by '/'. This attribute provides for creating category hierarchy.

<!ELEMENT view (description?)>

<!ATTLIST view

id                 CDATA #REQUIRED

name               CDATA #REQUIRED

category           CDATA #IMPLIED

class              CDATA #REQUIRED

icon               CDATA #IMPLIED

fastViewWidthRatio CDATA #IMPLIED

allowMultiple      (true | false) >

• id - a unique name that will be used to identify this view

• name - a translatable name that will be used in the UI for this view

• category - an optional attribute that is composed of the category IDs separated by '/'. Each referenced category must exist prior to being referenced in this attribute.

• class - a fully qualified name of the class that implements org.eclipse.ui.IViewPart. A common practice is to subclass org.eclipse.ui.part.ViewPart in order to inherit the default functionality.

• icon - a relative name of the icon that will be associated with the view.

• fastViewWidthRatio - the percentage of the width of the workbench that the view will take up as an active fast view. This must be defined as a floating point value and lie between 0.05 and 0.95. If no value is supplied, a default ratio will be used.

• allowMultiple - flag indicating whether this view allows multiple instances to be created using IWorkbenchPage.showView(String id, String secondaryId). The default is false.

<!ELEMENT description (#CDATA)>

an optional subelement whose body should contain text providing a short description of the view.

<!ELEMENT stickyView EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST stickyView

id        CDATA #REQUIRED

location  (RIGHT|LEFT|TOP|BOTTOM)

closeable (true | false)

moveable  (true | false) >

A sticky view is a view that will appear by default across all perspectives in a window once it is opened. Its initial placement is governemed by the location attribute, but nothing prevents it from being moved or closed by the user. Use of this element will only cause a placeholder for the view to be created, it will not show the view. Please note that usage of this element should be done with great care and should only be applied to views that truely have a need to live across perspectives. Since 3.0

• id - the id of the view to be made sticky.

• location - optional attribute that specifies the location of the sticky view relative to the editor area. If absent, the view will be docked to the right of the editor area.

• closeable - optional attribute that specifies wether the view should be closeable. If absent it will be closeable.

• moveable - optional attribute that specifies wether the view should be moveable. If absent it will be moveable.

Examples:

The following is an example of the extension point:

   
<extension point=
"org.eclipse.ui.views"
>
 
      
<category 
         id=
"com.xyz.views.XYZviews"
 
         name=
"XYZ"
>
 
      
</category>
 
      
<view 
         id=
"com.xyz.views.XYZView"
 
         name=
"XYZ View"
 
         category=
"com.xyz.views.XYZviews"
 
         class=
"com.xyz.views.XYZView"
 
         icon=
"icons/XYZ.gif"
>
 
      
</view>
 
   
</extension>
 

The following is an example of a sticky view declaration:

   
<extension point=
"org.eclipse.ui.views"
>
 
      
<stickyView
         id=
"com.xyz.views.XYZView"
 />
   
</extension>
 

API Information:

The value of the class attribute must be a fully qualified name of the class that implements org.eclipse.ui.IViewPart. It is common practice to subclass org.eclipse.ui.part.ViewPart when developing a new view.

Supplied Implementation:

The workbench provides a number of standard views including Navigator, Properties, Outline and Tasks. From the user point of view, these views are no different from any other view provided by the plug-ins. All the views can be shown from the "Show View" submenu of the "Window" menu. The position of a view is persistent: it is saved when the view is closed and restored when the view is reopened in a single session. The position is also persisted between workbench sessions.

Copyright (c) 2002, 2004 IBM Corporation and others.
All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the Common Public License v1.0 which accompanies this distribution, and is available at http://www.eclipse.org/legal/cpl-v10.html