How to extend the source menu in Eclipse? (or: What is its locationURI?)

Question

I am developing an eclipse plugin and trying to extend the source menu (mainMenubar/Source - visible when editing in the java-editor) in Eclipse 3.7.

The documentation says to rely on the org.eclipse.ui.menus-extension point since the older extension points are deprecated. It is a complete secret to me where to obtain reliable locationURIs, but I finally managed to find some plausible URI with the Plugin Spy (following an advice here). So the following should be the extension snippet for the plugin.xml:

<extension
 point="org.eclipse.ui.menus">
 <menuContribution
     locationURI="menu:org.eclipse.jdt.ui.source.menu">
  <command
    commandId="some.command.id"
        label="Some label"
        style="push">
  </command>
 </menuContribution>
</extension>

Unfortunately, when running the plugin for my development IDE no command appears, and also no error message. Just nothing happens. When I set the locationURI to "menu:help", the new command appears in the help menu, so the problem seems to be really the locationURI.

I believe that JDT adds the `Source` menu item to its `org.eclipse.jdt.ui.CodingActionSet` action-set, which is probably enabled when you are in the `Java` perspective. Do you have your own perspective? — sgibly, Aug 18 '11 at 22:02

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 19 '11 at 04:22

This thread reports having added an entry in the main Source menu:

<!-- main menu -->
<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.actionSets">
  <actionSet label="Java Coding"
             description="Action set containing coding related Java actions"
             visible="true"
             id="org.eclipse.jdt.ui.CodingActionSet2">
    <menu label="&amp;Source"
          path="edit"
          id="org.eclipse.jdt.ui.source.menu">
    </menu>
    <action class="org.gsoc.eclipse.tostringgenerator.actions.GenerateToStringActionDelegate "
            id="org.gsoc.eclipse.tostringgenerator.action"
            label="Generate to&amp;String()..."
            menubarPath="org.eclipse.jdt.ui.source.menu/generateGroup">
    </action>
  </actionSet>
</extension>

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 23 '11 at 14:39

I ran into the same problem. I finally figured out that extending the Source menu using the (recommended) extension point org.eclipse.ui.menus is not possible.

The reason is that a menu defined in an old style actionSet (like the Source menu) is created after the processing of org.eclipse.ui.menus-extensions. The way it is, these extensions can only contribute to already existing menus.

So sticking to the old API (as suggested by VonC) is probably the best option until the jdt plugin is migrated to the new approach...

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 28 '12 at 20:18

You can use the popup: space instead of the menu: space. Here is a working example:

    <extension point="org.eclipse.ui.commands">
    <command defaultHandler="com.igenox.plugin.dpbuilder.rcp.handler.CreateBuilderHandler"
        id="com.igenox.plugin.DPBuilder.CreateBuilderPattern" name="CreateBuilderPattern">
    </command>
</extension>
<extension point="org.eclipse.ui.menus">
    <menuContribution
        locationURI="popup:org.eclipse.jdt.ui.source.menu?after=DPSeparator">
        <command commandId="com.igenox.plugin.DPBuilder.CreateBuilderPattern"
            id="createBuilder" label="Create Builder Pattern">
        </command>
    </menuContribution>
    <menuContribution
        locationURI="popup:org.eclipse.jdt.ui.source.menu?after=additions">
        <separator name="DPSeparator" visible="true">
        </separator>
    </menuContribution>
</extension>

How to extend the source menu in Eclipse? (or: What is its locationURI?)

3 Answers3

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