The Eclipse Graphical Editing Framework (GEF)

A hands-on tutorial for new Eclipse GEF developers, plus a complete API reference and troubleshooting guide for all GEF developers A step-by-step walkthrough of all major GEF sub-products, driven by a realistic, running example. How to design, develop and maintain commercial-quality GEF projects, avoid common pitfalls, and take full advantage of GEFs features. Includes coverage of implementing GEF Usability and GEF Accessibility. Detailed, example-rich coverage of testing GEF applications. As the popularity of Eclipse and SWT-based applications continues to grow, product specifications are requiring richer graphical interfaces. When standard widgets such as text editors, combo boxes and trees arent enough, graphics may be the best choice to display information. In this practical, hands-on guide, three leading Eclipse graphics experts covers everything developers need to build the rich, visual interfaces they want. The authors introduce all three graphics frameworks available to Eclipse developers, Draw2D, Zest, and GEF, discussing the pros and cons of each. They carefully introduce each frameworks API, walk through building a robust application with Draw2D, and then refactor their example application twice: first with Zest, and then with GEF. Coverage includes: Draw2D figures, layouts, connections, routing algorithms, and text support; Zest graphing and layout algorithms; GEF controllers, commands, requests, palette and tools, accessibility, usability; and much more. The book also includes a full chapter of advanced techniques, as well as practical troubleshooting guidance.