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How to make simplistic RCP app standalone? [message #1222220]

Thu, 19 December 2013 23:14

Suzan Cioc

Messages: 2
Registered: December 2013

Junior Member

I want to create very simple RCP application, but which is standalone. Below the steps I accomplish. Final application should print "Hello world", but doesn't.

Creating Simplistic RCP Application

I create new plugin project. At this moment all wizard features were disabled and I press

Finish

button. As a result, Eclipse creates nearly empty project with

MANIFEST.MF

and

build.properties

files only.

Now I am creating an application. Application is an extension to

org.eclipse.core.runtime.applications

extension point, which is implemented inside

org.eclipse.core.runtime

plug-in. So I add this plug-in as a dependency:

This creates new node in

Package Explorer

, called

Plug-in Dependencies

:

Now I add new extension to this point in my plug-in:

I am giving an id

myappid

to my application and assign a class

myproject.Application

to it.

This creates a file

plugin.xml

[code]&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;?eclipse version="3.4"?&gt;
&lt;plugin&gt;
   &lt;extension
         id="myappid"
         point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.applications"&gt;
      &lt;application
            cardinality="singleton-global"
            thread="main"
            visible="true"&gt;
         &lt;run
               class="myproject.Application"&gt;
         &lt;/run&gt;
      &lt;/application&gt;
   &lt;/extension&gt;

&lt;/plugin&gt;[/code]

which contains all this information. Also this file is referred from

build.properties

[code]source.. = src/
output.. = bin/
bin.includes = META-INF/,\
               .,\
               plugin.xml[/code]

Simultaneously

MANIFEST.MF

becomes invalid, since it is now required to be singleton, which is set either automatically, or by check box from

Overview

tab:

Note, that although my application id is

myappid

, this name is not fully qualified. Fully qualified name appears from concatenation between plug-in id and this is. In my case it is

myproject.myappid

.

Now I am going (back) to

Extensions

tab of manifest editor, and create class file for application by clicking

class

hyperlink:

This invokes

New Java class

wizard and finally creates

java

file and opens it in the editor:

[code]package myproject;

import org.eclipse.equinox.app.IApplication;
import org.eclipse.equinox.app.IApplicationContext;

public class Application implements IApplication {

    @Override
    public Object start(IApplicationContext context) throws Exception {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        return null;
    }

    @Override
    public void stop() {
        // TODO Auto-generated method stub

    }

}[/code]

I am adding only one line here, inside

start

method:

[code]System.out.println("Hello world from myproject");[/code]

Now after saving all I am able to run application from

Overview

tab of manifest editor. Program works and prints what is expected:

Quote:

Hello world from myproject

Printing occurs in Eclipse Console View.

Creating Product Configuration

Now I am creating a product configuration, which is required for export wizard can work.

Creating and setting product file simultaneously adds extension to

plugin.xml

file to

org.eclipse.core.runtime.products

extension point.

On the

Overview

tab of product file editor, I press

New

button, which invokes

New Product Definition

window:

I filled it with new product name, product id and also referred application, which fully qualified name I derived before.

Now my

plugin.xml

file lokks like follows:

[code]&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;?eclipse version="3.4"?&gt;
&lt;plugin&gt;
   &lt;extension
         id="myappid"
         point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.applications"&gt;
      &lt;application
            cardinality="singleton-global"
            thread="main"
            visible="true"&gt;
         &lt;run
               class="myproject.Application"&gt;
         &lt;/run&gt;
      &lt;/application&gt;
   &lt;/extension&gt;
   &lt;extension
         id="myproductid"
         point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.products"&gt;
      &lt;product
            application="myproject.myappid"
            name="MyProduct"&gt;
      &lt;/product&gt;
   &lt;/extension&gt;

&lt;/plugin&gt;[/code]

You see that our product is represented there.

Now I need to do a trick which I was not able to find for a long time.

Despite the fact that product file refers to application and plugin correctly, it is not included into product content automatically. I regard this as Eclipse bug.

So, I go to

Dependencies

tab of product file editor, and add my own plugin to it:

After that I need to press magic button

Add Required Plug-ins

Now I am able to run my application from within

Overview

panel of product file editor and it works as expected (printing text inside console view).

Exporting Product

Only now I am able to utilize export wizard

This will create directory

D:\myproject

and put everything into it. It can be ran by running

eclipse.exe

inside

Unfortunately, it does nothing, although, cause no exceptions.

Questions

1) Why my exported program does nothing? Is it expects eclipse console or something? Or it just doesn't work?

2) How to make the program to print? My be it is possible to provide GUI console like in Eclipse? May be it is possible to force it to print to real operating system console?

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