Eclipse standard commands

7.1. Overview

Eclipse provides lots of standard commands which you can re-use. Just press on the "Browse button" while defining your commandId to see the available standard commands. For example the screenshot shows the usage of the standard about dialog command.

The advantage of using standard commands is that you get the keybinding, icons, etc for free.

Tip

Standard commands sometimes map to actions which are contributed via ActionFactory in the class ApplicationActionBarAdvisor. If the ActionFactory returns an IAction you need to register this action. If not these commands are inactive in your menu. For example the following made the reset perspective and welcome command active.

    
// Method belongs to class ApplicationActionBarAdvisor
 @Override
 protected void makeActions(IWorkbenchWindow window)
 {
  IWorkbenchAction quickStartAction = ActionFactory.INTRO.create(window);
  register(quickStartAction);
  IWorkbenchAction resetView = ActionFactory.RESET_PERSPECTIVE
    .create(window);
  register(resetView);
 }
   

7.2. Example

You can also use standard command and define a new handler for this command, e.g. you can use the standard Eclipse delete command (org.eclipse.ui.edit.delete).

Tip

To find the id of existing commands you can you the Eclipse Plugin Spy.

You can use the extension point "org.eclipse.ui.handlers" to define new handlers for the standard commands.

Tip

Eclipse requires you to have only one active handler at the time therefore you have to use the "activeWhen" restriction on the handler to make it more special then the standard binding. To use for example delete in several views with different handlers use "activeWhen" with the variable "activePartId" and as the value your view id.

Create a new RCP application "de.vogella.rcp.commands.standardcommands" with the template "Hello RCP".

Create a handler for the command "org.eclipse.ui.edit.delete" which display a message box. Add the command "org.eclipse.ui.edit.delete" to the menu.

The result should look like the following.