About.ini File Format

Last revised March 25, 2003 for Eclipse 2.1

A feature's "about" information is given by properties in the "about.ini" file located within the feature's plug-in. This is a java.io.Properties format file (ISO 8859-1 character encoding with \uxxxx Unicode escapes), with the following keys:

• "aboutText" - A multi-line text description of the feature containing copyright, license terms, license registration info, etc. URLs found in text are presented as links. Line breaks are indicated by "\n"; lines should be no longer than 75 characters each, and there is a limit of 15 lines. This information is shown in the main "about" dialog (used in conjunction with a half-sized image), and on the secondary "about" dialog describing individuals feature. All features are required to have this property.
• "windowImage" - A 16x16 pixel color image used to brand windows created by a product. The value of this property is a plug-in-relative path to an image file. This property is only required for primary features; other features may omit it.
• "featureImage" - A 32x32 pixel color image used as an icon for this feature. The value of this property is a plug-in-relative path to an image file. This image is shown on the "about" dialog describing individual features, and is also used on the main "about" dialog to indicate that the feature is present. This property is optional. Related features supplied by a single provider should contain copies of the identical image file; this allows duplicate images to be eliminated.
• "aboutImage" - A large color image that appears in the main "about" dialog for a product. The value of this property is a plug-in-relative path to an image file. This property is only required for primary features; other features should omit it. Both graphic-and-text, and graphic only layouts are supported, depending on the size of image provided. A half-size image of up to 250 pixels wide by 330 pixels high is shown on the main "about" dialog with text ("aboutText" property) beside it. A full-size image of up to 500 pixels wide by 330 pixels high is shown without text.
• "welcomePage"  - A welcome page. The value of this property is a plug-in-relative path to an XML-format file containing the feature's welcome page. This property is recommended for all major features; other features may omit it.
• "welcomePerspective"  - The preferred perspective in which to show the welcome page. The value of this property is a workbench perspective id. This property is recommended for features with welcome pages that show better in the context of the feature's views and editors. Features that do not have welcome pages, or have no strong opinion where the welcome pages is shown, should omit it.
• "appName" - A short, non-translatable string used to associate a name with the application on platforms where this makes sense. In operating environments with the Motif window system, the value is used for Motif resource lookup (see xrdb and related). In addition, on the CDE window manager (used on Solaris and AIX), this is the name which shows up under the icon for windows which are minimized to the desktop. This property is required for primary features; other features may omit it.
• "tipsAndTricksHref"  - Tips and tricks section of help documentation. The value of this property is a reference to a help book containing the feature's tips and trick section; for example, tipsAndTricksHref=/org.eclipse.jdt.doc.user/tips/jdt_tips.html. This property is recommended for all major features; other features may omit it.