xii Introduction system (Sex offenders web site) are introduced. All these components
xii Introduction system are introduced. All these components are available to the application programmer as building blocks, a fact that can speed up application development considerably. Then, I show how your own products can be packaged for deployment. Eclipse offers integrated support for all tasks here, too: from the creation of a feature, to the creation of nation language fragment and the definition of an update site, to the automated installation of updates. As an example, a universal and fully functional plug-in for spell checking on Eclipse platforms is implemented. Finally, I discuss the Rich Client Platform (RCP) that was introduced with Eclipse 3 and serves as a generic platform for a wide range of applications. The board game Hex is implemented as an example of such an RCP application. In Appendix A some more interesting third-party plug-ins are listed. In Appendix B I discuss the migration to another version of the Eclipse platform. Appendix C contains download addresses for the thirdparty software and the source code used in the examples. Acknowledgements Books are always teamwork, even if only the author s name appears below the title. This is also the case with this book, and here is the place to acknowledge the contribution of all the other team members. Special thanks go to the publisher John Wiley & Sons and Wrox, in particular to Gaynor Redvers-Mutton who acted as the publishing editor. Thanks go also to the publisher of the original German edition, dpunkt verlag, and the responsible editor there, Ren Sch nfeldt. Thanks also to Tim Ryan s group who handled the production of this book, especially Linda Recktenwald for copyediting, Gina Rexrode for composition, and Nathan Clement for his technical illustrations. Many important tips that found their way into this book came from the (anonymous) reviewers but also from developers and employees of OTI who had looked at the first manuscript version. Many thanks! And of course, without the development of Eclipse this book would not have been written, and Eclipse is indeed a tool that I wouldn t want to miss. Thanks again! Berthold Daum June 2004 berthold.daum@bdaum.de