windowbuilder jface actions in swt designer

Question

I'm writing a JFace standalone application using eclipse/windowbuilder pro. Windowbuilder is a nice tool to work with, but I'm having trouble finding information on the organizational structure of such an application.

Currently I'm extending the standard ApplicationWindow class (as is standard in windowbuilder examples) for the main window of my application and subclassing SWT composites for my 'sub windows' in the application. The problem I'm having is that I lose the ability to use JFace actions / databindings when I'm graphically building SWT Composite subclasses in windowbuilder. The palette for adding JFace actions is inaccessible when using SWT designer while subclassing standard SWT components. I've searched at length for how to add this palette to no avail (the standard method fails since this isn't a 'normal' palette that appears in the palette manager). I've also tried adding the JFace action component to my existing palette, but can't find documentation on how to add an abstract class (Action) to the palette. I know that I can write all the code I want by hand, but it defeats the purpose of using windowbuilder.

I'd really like to stick to the standard JFace viewer/action model, but I can't figure out which components I should be subclassing for my 'sub windows' in my app. I've tried subclassing the Window class directly but this doesn't yield access to windowbuilder's JFace Actions palette. I'm not sure under what conditions that palette is accessible (I've been iteratively removing and adding components to ApplicationWindow, I'm getting desperate). I have a few custom widgets that I'd gladly write JFace Viewers for if I could figure this out.

Any windowbuilder fans out there? Is subclassing SWT Composite a reasonable/standard way to go about making components of this application? What is the standard for writing apps that are more complicated than a single ApplicationWindow? I've searched high and low, but can only seem to find tutorials and examples that are a single application window -- nothing composite. I feel like I'm missing some key pieces of information with regard to the structure of more complicated JFace applications. I suppose my holy grail would be the JFace version of SWT Composite that would allow me access to JFace actions code generation through windowbuilder.

Any tips and/or reading material explaining standard JFace design for larger applications would be appreciated!

Answer 1

I've been working with WBPro for about 6 to 7 years now... I think we can have a conversation about your problem. I might not be able to answer your question completely, but I will do my best. So, first off, for your sub-windows you should use JFace Dialogs. You can create a template one from New>Other>WbPro>JFace>Dialog or just subclass it yourself. You can also use TitleAreaDialog which is cooler and has a Title Bar at the top just like all Eclipse Dialogs. These two classes are both within JFace and are available in WBPro.

You have the JFace widgets and viewers available in the Design Tab, but not the actions. But the reason for that is that Dialogs and sub-Windows do not have Toolbars or Menu bars, I think that's why they are not there in the palette, but if you have a Context Menu for one of your inner widgets, I think you should implement that yourself. I can dig a little deeper for you if you want, se tell me if there is still something to address.