Eclipse 4.0 SDK and Eclipse e4

1.1. Overview

Eclipse e4 project introduces a new set of technologies into the Eclipse platform that make Eclipse plugins and Eclipse RCP applications easier to write, more configurable and easier to reuse. The first release of the Eclipse e4 project is Eclipse 4.0 SDK. This article is based on the Eclipse 4.0 SDK.

The major enhancements in Eclipse e4 compared to Eclipse 3.x are:

• The Eclipse workbench UI is described by an EMF model

• The model is available at design- and runtime

• Eclipse widgets can be styled via CSS style sheets

• The existing Eclipse API's are re-worked to make them simpler

• Eclipse e4 supports dependency injection for services into model components

• The model elements are decoupled from their presentation via a Renderer Framework

1.2. About this tutorial

The following description will start with the creation of a e4 based application via a wizard to allow people to get quickly started. It describes the modeled workbench concept and the new programming model which is based on annotations and dependency injection. It then covers the declarative styling introduced in e4.

The remainder of the tutorial will be used to develop a e4 based todo application.