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Eclipse4/API/UIModel

< Eclipse4‎ | API
Revision as of 06:33, 6 March 2013 by Pwebster.ca.ibm.com (Talk | contribs) (Commands)

UI Model

The UI Model is used to describe the various components of an application's User Interface. This model is an abstract definition that is rendered into reality on a particular platform through the use of a presentation engine driving a set of renderers (usually but not limited to one renderer part UI Model type.

The model itself is based on EMF. One of the things that EMF does a really good job at is allowing multiple inheritance so the basic design of the model starts with low-level components that can then be aggregated into concrete classes.

The model itself is composed from a number of different type of elements which are used to define the 'concrete' UI elements (i.e. the ones that actually get rendered):

Mix-ins

Used to contain the attributes for different concepts such as label information or containment types. These will be useful when we eventually start to derive domain-specific models based on the current one.

Context

Dirtyable

Input

UIElement

UILabel

Item

MenuItem

ToolItem

SnippetContainer

Containment Definitions

In order to facilitate the use of Java generics each container may only contain elements of a single 'type' (interface really). These elements represent the type that is legal in a given container. In order to make an element legal for a given container add that container's type as one of the mix-ins for the class being contained.

WindowElement - Elements that can be added to a Window's list of children:

  • Part
  • PartStack
  • PartSashContainer

TrimElement - Elements that can be added to a TrimBar

  • ToolBar
  • ToolControl

PartSashContainerElement - Elements that can be added to a PartSashContainer

  • Part
  • PartStack
  • PartSashContainer (it's recursive)

StackElement - Elements that can be added to a PartStack

  • Part
  • Placeholder

Concrete Classes

These define the true UI model as used to present an applicaton. The UI Model has been broken down into a number of discreet packages, the sections below will be based on the contents of each package:

Basic UI

This package contains the most elementary of the UI components:

MApplication

  MWindow

  MTrimmedWindow

    MTrimBar (contained by an MTrimmedWindow but not in its list of children)

    MPartSashContainer

      MPartStack

         MPart

         MInputPart

        MToolBar

        MToolControl

 Basic UI (Descriptors)

This Package contains the 'descriptors' for various elements. Currently only PartDescriptors are supported but over time we may well want to include other types such as PerspectiveDescriptors. Essentially this is the e4 way to capture the set of available views that a user may wish to open and from which the actual MPart can be instantiated.

MPartDescriptor

Advanced UI

This package contains the elements necessary to support more complex UI's such as are required by the Eclipse IDE itself such as Perspectives and (editor) Areas.

MPerspectiveStack

  MPerspective

  MPlaceholder

MArea

Commands

This package contains the elements necessary to support the Commands infrastructure. Here a single command is referenced by any number of Handlers (at most one of which will be active in any given UI context.

MBindingContext

MBindingTable Not sure we want this as API for now since we may want to combine or modify how these are used

While these are related to MBindingContext, they're not the same thing. These are flat tables of keybindings that are used for lookups. Pwebster.ca.ibm.com

MCategory

MCommand

MCommandParameter

MHandler

MKeyBinding

MParameter Do we need this ?

This is used when placing a command in a menu item or keybinding, to specify the parameter (ex: Show View(Package Explorer). Pwebster.ca.ibm.com

Menus (and Toolbars)

This package contains the elements used to define menus, toolbars and their corresponding items. There are two flavors for the items, 'direct' and 'handled' based on wether the item is backed by a Command or not.

MDirectMenuItem

MDirectToolItem

MDynamicMenuContribution

MHandledMenuItem

MHandledToolItem

MMenu

MMenuContribution This appears as if it should be part of the snippet story

MMenuSeparator

MOpaqueMenu This is unnecessary (we can use different renderes for a standard MMenu now)

MOpaqueMenuItem This is unecessary

MOpaqueMenuSeparator This is unnecessary

MOpaqueToolItem This is unnecessary

MPopupMenu Do we nned this...why does a popup menu need a context ?

MRenderedMenu This is unnecessary

MRenderedMenuItem This is unnecessary

MRenderedToolbar This is unnecessary

MToolbar

MToolBarContribution This appears as if it should be part of the snippet story

MToolBarSeparator

MToolControl

MTrimContribution This appears as if it should be part of the snippet story

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