Property Pages

Identifier:
org.eclipse.ui.propertyPages

Description:
This extension point is used to add additional property page for objects of a given type. Once defined, these property pages will appear in the Properties Dialog for objects of that type.

A property page is a user friendly way to interact with the properties of an object. Unlike the Properties view, which restricts the space available for editing an object property, a property page may benefit from the freedom to define larger, more complex controls with labels, icons, etc. Properties which logically go together may also be clustered in a page, rather than scattered in the property sheet. However, in most applications it will be appropriate to expose some properties of an object via the property sheet and some via the property pages.

Property pages are shown in a dialog box that is normally visible when the "Properties" menu item is selected on a pop-up menu for an object. In addition to the object class, the name filter can optionally be supplied to register property pages only for specific object types.

If these filtering mechanisms are inadequate a property page may use the filter mechanism. In this case the attributes of the target object are described in a series of key value pairs. The attributes which apply to the selection are type specific and beyond the domain of the workbench itself, so the workbench will delegate filtering at this level to the actual selection.

Configuration Markup:

<!ELEMENT extension (page*)>

<!ATTLIST extension

point CDATA #REQUIRED

id    CDATA #IMPLIED

name  CDATA #IMPLIED>


<!ELEMENT page (filter* , keywordReference* , enabledWhen?)>

<!ATTLIST page

id              CDATA #REQUIRED

name            CDATA #REQUIRED

icon            CDATA #IMPLIED

objectClass     CDATA #IMPLIED

class           CDATA #REQUIRED

nameFilter      CDATA #IMPLIED

adaptable       (true | false)

category        IDREF #IMPLIED

selectionFilter (single|multi) >

The page is the specification of the implementation and appearance of the page.



<!ELEMENT filter EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST filter

name  CDATA #REQUIRED

value CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to evaluate the attribute state of each object in the current selection. A match occurs only if each object in the selection has the specified attribute state. Each object in the selection must implement, or adapt to, org.eclipse.ui.IActionFilter.



<!ELEMENT keywordReference EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST keywordReference

id IDREF #IMPLIED>

A reference by a property page to a keyword. See the keywords extension point.



<!ELEMENT enabledWhen (not | and | or | instanceof | test | systemTest | equals | count | with | resolve | adapt | iterate | reference)>

The enabled when element specifies the conditions under which this property page will be added to the properties dialog.



<!ELEMENT enablement (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

A generic root element. The element can be used inside an extension point to define its enablement expression. The children of an enablement expression are combined using the "and" operator.



<!ELEMENT not (not | and | or | instanceof | test | systemTest | equals | count | with | resolve | adapt | iterate | reference)>

This element represents a NOT operation on the result of evaluating its sub-element expression.



<!ELEMENT and (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

This element represents an AND operation on the result of evaluating all its sub-elements expressions.



<!ELEMENT or (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

This element represent an OR operation on the result of evaluating all its sub-element expressions.



<!ELEMENT instanceof EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST instanceof

value CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to perform an instanceof check of the object in focus. The expression returns EvaluationResult.TRUE if the object's type is a sub type of the type specified by the attribute value. Otherwise EvaluationResult.FALSE is returned.



<!ELEMENT test EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST test

property              CDATA #REQUIRED

args                  CDATA #IMPLIED

value                 CDATA #IMPLIED

forcePluginActivation (true | false) >

This element is used to evaluate the property state of the object in focus. The set of testable properties can be extended using the org.eclipse.core.expressions.propertyTesters extension point. The test expression returns EvaluationResult.NOT_LOADED if the property tester doing the actual testing isn't loaded yet and the attribute forcePluginActivation is set to false. If forcePluginActivation is set to true and the evaluation context used to evaluate this expression support plug-in activation then evaluating the property will result in activating the plug-in defining the tester.



<!ELEMENT systemTest EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST systemTest

property CDATA #REQUIRED

value    CDATA #REQUIRED>

Tests a system property by calling the System.getProperty method and compares the result with the value specified through the value attribute.



<!ELEMENT equals EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST equals

value CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to perform an equals check of the object in focus. The expression returns EvaluationResult.TRUE if the object is equal to the value provided by the attribute value. Otherwise EvaluationResult.FALSE is returned.



<!ELEMENT count EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST count

value CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to test the number of elements in a collection.



<!ELEMENT with (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

<!ATTLIST with

variable CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element changes the object to be inspected for all its child element to the object referenced by the given variable. If the variable can not be resolved then the expression will throw an ExpressionException when evaluating it. The children of a with expression are combined using the "and" operator.



<!ELEMENT resolve (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

<!ATTLIST resolve

variable CDATA #REQUIRED

args     CDATA #IMPLIED>

This element changes the object to be inspected for all its child element to the object referenced by the given variable. If the variable can not be resolved then the expression will throw an ExpressionException when evaluating it. The children of a resolve expression are combined using the "and" operator.



<!ELEMENT adapt (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

<!ATTLIST adapt

type CDATA #REQUIRED>

This element is used to adapt the object in focus to the type specified by the attribute type. The expression returns EvaluationResult.NOT_LOADED if either the adapter or the type referenced isn't loaded yet. It throws an ExpressionException during evaluation if the type name doesn't exist at all. The children of an adapt expression are combined using the "and" operator.



<!ELEMENT iterate (not , and , or , instanceof , test , systemTest , equals , count , with , resolve , adapt , iterate , reference)*>

<!ATTLIST iterate

operator (or|and)

ifEmpty  (true | false) >

This element is used to iterate over a variable that is of type java.util.Collection, or a variable that adapts to org.eclipse.core.expressions.IIterable. If the object in focus is not one of the above then a CoreException with an ExpressionStatus will be thrown while evaluating the expression. The child expressions of an iterate expression are combined using the "and" operator.



<!ELEMENT reference EMPTY>

<!ATTLIST reference

definitionId IDREF #REQUIRED>

This element is used to reference an expression from the org.eclipse.core.expressions.definitions extension point. The expression definition will be evaluated within the current expression element using the current evaluation context.



Examples:
The following is an example of the property page definition:


   <extension point="org.eclipse.ui.propertyPages"> 
        <page 
            id="com.xyz.projectPage" 
            name="XYZ Java Properties" 
            class="com.xyz.ppages.JavaPropertyPage" 
            nameFilter="*.java"> 
            <enabledWhen>
             <instanceof
                  value="org.eclipse.core.resources.IFile">
             </instanceof>
          </enabledWhen>
            <filter name="readOnly" value="true"/> 
        </page> 
    </extension> 

API Information:
The attribute class must specify a fully qualified name of the class that implements org.eclipse.ui.IWorkbenchPropertyPage or org.eclipse.ui.IWorkbenchPropertyPageMulti.

Supplied Implementation:
Some objects provided by the workbench may have property pages registered. Plug-ins are allowed to add more property pages for these objects. Property pages are not limited to workbench resources: all objects showing up in the workbench (even domain specific objects created by the plug-ins) may have property pages and other plug-ins are allowed to register property pages for them.


Copyright (c) 2002, 2010 IBM Corporation and others.
This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License 2.0 which accompanies this distribution, and is available at https://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v20.html/ SPDX-License-Identifier: EPL-2.0