x Introduction components to implement features such as (Web site management)
x Introduction components to implement features such as the Java IDE or the workbench, but they can also be used for your own applications. In particular, the Rich Client Platform that was introduced with Eclipse 3 provides a generic framework for a wide class of applications. The Eclipse license model allows users to embed these components into their own applications, to modify them, and to deploy them as part of their own applications all without paying a cent in license fees. The complete Eclipse code is available as source code, can be browsed online, and can be used within you own projects. The Eclipse Culture Of course, Eclipse was not just invented : it has a history. The author of this book, who has used Visual Age for Java for years, can detect many of the Visual Age construction elements within Eclipse. In fact, the same company that stood behind the development of Visual Age is also responsible for the development of Eclipse. This company is OTI (www.oti.com). As long ago as 1988, OTI developed a collaborative development environment for Smalltalk called ENVY, which was later licensed to IBM under the name Visual Age. What followed was the development of Visual Age for Java, but this was still implemented in Smalltalk. Now, OTI has started the next generation of development tools with Eclipse. Of course, we find many of the design elements of Visual Age in Eclipse. The difference is, however, that Eclipse is implemented in Java and that it features a much more open architecture than Visual Age. Eclipse was licensed by IBM and than donated to the Open Source community. This was not done without self-interest: Eclipse basically is nothing more than the community edition of IBM s WebSphere Studio Application Developer (WSAD). The core platform and the core plug-ins are all the same. The main difference is that Eclipse 3.0 consists of about 90 plug-ins, while WSAD features about 500 700 plug-ins, thus offering greatly extended functionality, such as plug-ins for developing web and database applications. About This Book It is practically impossible to write a single book about Eclipse. The sheer complexity of Eclipse would require quite a few books. I have tried to emphasize those topics where Eclipse makes significant contributions to the Java world. In particular, these are the new GUI libraries (SWT and JFace) and the use of Eclipse as a platform and framework for desktop applications. What had to be excluded from this book are WebSphere-specific topics such as J2EE and servlet development. Developing desktop applications is currently one of the strong points of Eclipse. This book is not an introduction to Java programming. We assume that readers have a good knowledge of Java and of object-oriented programming concepts. Most of the examples used in this book are not trivial. Two examples come from the multimedia area. Here, readers have the possibility of getting their feet wet with cutting-edge Java technology such as speech processing and MP3 (all in pure Java!). In the third example, we do something useful and implement a spell checker plug-in for Eclipse. I am sick and tired of bad orthography in Java comments! The last example is a board game implemented on the basis of the Rich Client Platform, just to burn some of the programmer s spare time gained by productivity enhancements of the Eclipse IDE. This book, therefore, addresses Java programmers from the student to the professional who want to implement their own desktop applications with the help (or on the basis) of Eclipse. You will learn all the techniques that are required to create applications of professional quality.
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