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| Re: standalone SWT versus RCP [message #440096 is a reply to message #440019] |
Wed, 21 July 2004 21:30   |
 Chris Laffra
Messages: 253
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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andrew mcintyre wrote:
> Could somebody contrast the advantages/disadvantages of going down the
standalone SWT development path versus the RCP path? Especially with draw2d
involved?
> I'm leaning toward the RCP path because it looks simpler but what do I know,
I'm a raw newbie.
RCP is a framework and provides support for policies how to add
a menubar, coolbar, status line and views to your application.
It also solves a lot of the questions you have on how to load/save
preferences, how to do help, etc. If your application needs the above
features, and is less than trivial, go with RCP. Using plug-ins for
designing your app is worth-while also.
If you do Hello-World, use the SWT toolkit. That's all it is, a toolkit.
It does not have any particular support for application features.
Hope this helps.
I recommend reading the RCP tutorials written by Ed Burnette
Chris
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| Re: standalone SWT versus RCP [message #440121 is a reply to message #440019] |
Thu, 22 July 2004 18:33 |
David J. Orme
Messages: 291
Registered: July 2009 |
Senior Member |
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andrew mcintyre wrote:
> Could somebody contrast the advantages/disadvantages of going down the standalone SWT development path versus the RCP path? Especially with draw2d involved?
>
> I'm leaning toward the RCP path because it looks simpler but what do I know, I'm a raw newbie.
>
RCP
+ Provides higher-level application framework than SWT; more productive
if you need its features and like (& can accept) its general design
approach.
+ Can include Eclipse's update manager if you need to supply software
updates dynamically to clients. This alone could be RCP's killer app if
you're a corporate developer.
+ If your application's UI has to scale to huge, epic sizes (like
Eclipse's UI has to be able to scale), RCP helps a lot.
- For small to medium-sized applications that aren't updated often or
are client-side-only, RCP is large, heavyweight, and slow. All that
dynamic UI stuff that helps so much if your UI has to scale to large
numbers of features can just get in the way if you have small and simple
requirements.
SWT (by itself)
+ Small, lightweight, performant.
+ Is low-level. You can code almost anything in it.
- Is low-level. Although you can code almost anything in it, it's so
low-level you have to pretty much code everything in it.
There's a third option not being talked about much, and that is the
SWTworkbench RCPLite framework. RCPLite is intended to sit in the
middle-ground between naked SWT and Eclipse's full-blown RCP. Here's
roughly how it stacks up:
RCPLite (http://www.swtworkbench.com/devzone/rcplite/index.shtml):
+ Small, lightweight, performant. It's designed to be as thin a layer
as possible on top of SWT and still provide application framework features.
+ Imitates the best features of Eclipse's UI and programming model and
improves on a few of them. Most notably these include perspectives, a
unified view/editor model, and the Action framework (for menu bar and
tool bar management).
+ Retains Eclipse 2.1's native look & feel.
+ A much simpler programming model than Eclipse's.
- What you gain in simplicity you lose in UI scalability. RCPLite isn't
designed to be able to support as many features in the application UI as
Eclipse can.
- No update manager for RCPLite (yet).
Regards,
Dave
--
Dave Orme
Eclipse Visual Editor Project Lead
Advanced Systems Concepts' Chief Architect
http://www.swtworkbench.com
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