View source for FAQ How can I change the name or tooltip of my action?

Actions contributed via XML have statically defined names, images, and 
tooltips.  Often, you want to change these attributes dynamically, based on the
current selection or some other state.  Owing to the lazy-loading nature of the
platform, you can&#146;t do this until your action has been run once. A common solution
is to specify generic attributes in the XML and then make attributes more dynamic
after the action has been run.  For example, the action to enable or disable breakpoints
is called '''Toggle Breakpoint''' when the platform is first started.  After
it has been run once, the action dynamically sets its name to be either 
'''Enable Breakpoint''' or '''Disable Breakpoint''', 
depending on whether the selected breakpoint is enabled.  Here is 
an example action that implements this behavior:
<pre>
   class ToggleAction 
         implements IWorkbenchWindowActionDelegate {
      private boolean state = false;
      public void run(IAction action) {
         state = !state;
         String name = state ? "True Action" : "False Action";
         action.setText(name);
         action.setToolTipText(name);
      }
   }
</pre>


You can change many more action properties, including the action&#146;s
image, accelerator key, and enablement.  Look at the methods on <tt>IAction</tt> to
see what other properties can be changed.

It is also common to update action
properties when the selection changes.  Although the preceding example uses a workbench
window action delegate, which is not notified of selection changes by default, the action
can register itself as a selection listener in the <tt>init</tt> method and then update
its state during the <tt>selectionChanged</tt> callback.


== See Also: ==

[[FAQ_How_do_I_find_out_what_object_is_selected%3F]]

<hr><font size=-2>This FAQ was originally published in [http://www.eclipsefaq.org Official Eclipse 3.0 FAQs]. Copyright 2004, Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. This text is made available here under the terms of the [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html Eclipse Public License v1.0].</font>