Use this tag for questions about JFace which is a Java application framework based on SWT. The goal of JFace is to provide a set of reusable components that make it easier to write a Java-based GUI application.
jface is a UI toolkit that provides helper classes for developing UI features that can be tedious to implement. jface operates above the level of a raw widget system. It includes classes for handling common UI programming tasks such as:
Viewers: Handle the drudgery of populating, sorting, filtering, and updating widgets.
Actions and contributions (Deprecated): Introduce semantics for defining user actions and specifying where to make them available.
Image and font registries: Provide common patterns for handling UI resources.
Dialogs and wizards: Define a framework for building complex interactions with the user.
Field assist: Provides classes that help guide the user in choosing appropriate content for fields in dialogs, wizards, or forms.
jface frees you up to focus on the implementation of your specific plug-in's function, rather than focusing on the underlying widget system or solving problems that are common in almost any UI application.
Eclipse jface is based upon the user interface toolkit swt. jface provides classes and frameworks which simplify common swt use cases. jface does not hide the swt API. Therefore swt knowledge is still required.
All JFace classes are in packages starting with org.eclipse.jface and are in the org.eclipse.jface plugin.
