FAQ How do I add actions to the toolbar?
From Eclipsepedia
Actions are added to the workbench windows toolbar by using the org.eclipse.ui.actionSets extension point. Here is a sample action element that contributes an action to the workbench window toolbar:
<action
class="org.eclipse.faq.examples.actions.ToolBarAction"
toolbarPath="Normal/exampleGroup"
icon="icons/sample.gif"
tooltip="Sample toolbar action">
</action>
The class attribute is the fully qualified name of the action that will be run
when the toolbar button is clicked. This class must implement the interface
IWorkbenchWindowActionDelegate. The toolbarPath attribute
has two segmentsthe toolbar ID and the group IDseparated
by a slash (/) character. The toolbar ID is used to indicate
which toolbar the action belongs to. This value isnt currently
used because the platform defines only one toolbar,
but the convention is to use the string Normal to represent the
default toolbar. The group ID is used to place similar actions together. All
actions with the same group ID will be placed in a fixed group in the toolbar.
The string in the tooltip attribute is shown when the user hovers over the
toolbar button.
You can specify many more attributes on your action, including
criteria for when your action should be visible and when it should be enabled.
However, the four attributes shown earlier are the minimum set you need for
a toolbar action. Some of the other action attributes are discussed in other FAQs.
See Also
Platform Plug-in Developer Guide, under Reference > Extension Points Reference > org.eclipse.ui.actionSets, Eclipse online article Contributing Actions to the Eclipse Workbench
This FAQ was originally published in Official Eclipse 3.0 FAQs. Copyright 2004, Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. This text is made available here under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0.