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Using Eclipse Ganymede to develop for the desktop, Web and mobile devices, Part 1: Developing for the Rich Client Platform, the Ganymede way

Desktop applications with RCP, Subversion and p2

Suresh Krishna, Software Developer, Freelance Developer

Suresh Krishna has been a programmer since 2000 and has been working on the domain modeling, IDEs, and productivity tools. Inspired by the IDE evolution and developer productivity, he works primarily on the Eclipse plug-ins and RCP applications. Extreme Programming and Scrum are his favorites, along with evangelizing Eclipse to the user, developer, and corporate communities. He enjoys his free time writing blogs and product evaluations.

Trebor Fenstermaker, Software Consultant, Sunnyside Avenue Software, LLC

Although he's programmed in Java since 1999, Trebor Fenstermaker was, for much of that time, highly suspicious of Java IDEs and was a die-hard command-line user, even doing all his code editing in vi -- until a colleague showed him that he really could be more efficient with Eclipse. He now evangelizes his fellow UNIX command-line refugees on its wonders and enjoys exploring its more powerful features -- including its endless possibilities for expansion through custom plug-ins.

Summary: The Ganymede release of the Eclipse IDE includes 24 separate projects, covering a wide range of technologies. Many of these projects are mature, and this release provides incremental improvements to those. But Ganymede also includes a number of new projects that introduce new technologies to the Eclipse platform. In this three-part "Using Eclipse Ganymede to develop for the desktop, Web and mobile devices" tutorial series, we will cover the following new Ganymede features: RCP, RAP, and eRCP, which allow you to develop software for the desktop, Web, and mobile platforms, respectively, with one common code base; Subversion for version control; and p2 for update and installation. Here in Part 1, we will use the mature Rich Client Platform (RCP) to develop an application for the desktop using Subversion for source control, and we will package and distribute the application using p2.

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Date: 02 Sep 2008
Level: Intermediate
PDF: A4 and Letter (3732 KB | 74 pages)Get Adobe® Reader®

Activity: 17542 views
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Before you start

This tutorial is for any Eclipse developer who wants to learn about some of the exciting new features available in Ganymede and for anyone interested in using these features to develop applications that can be deployed on multiple platforms with common code base. You should have an understanding of how to program in the Java programming language, and familiarity with the Eclipse platform and its model of using plug-ins.

About this series

Part 1 ("Developing for the Rich Client Platform, the Ganymede Way") provides an introduction to the new features of the RCP, the new Subversion Eclipse integration, and the p2 packaging and distribution system. Part 2 ("Take it to the Web") introduces the Rich Ajax Platform (RAP) to write applications for the Web. And Part 3 ("Going Mobile") discusses how to use the embedded Rich Client Platform (eRCP) to develop an application for a mobile device.

About this tutorial

The RCP is an Eclipse architecture that allows a developer to pick and choose the Eclipse plug-ins needed — and only those needed — to build a client desktop application. To demonstrate some of the new features of Ganymede, you will develop a simple RCP application (a personal organizer). In doing so, you will see some of the changes to the RCP in Ganymede, and you will use this application to explore the new Subversion source control and p2 packaging and distribution systems.

Topics include:

How to download and install the Ganymede packages.
How to set up the Subversion client and store your source in Subversion.
How to set up the target platform and switch from one operating system to another (i.e., Mac OS X to Microsoft® Windows® Vista).
How to create an application model and user plug-ins.
How to create a product definition and package and distributing your application using p2.

System requirements

You need the following technologies to follow along:

Eclipse Ganymede is at the Eclipse Foundation.
The Java 2 Standard Edition V5 or greater is available from Sun Microsystems.

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TutorialTitle=Using Eclipse Ganymede to develop for the desktop, Web and mobile devices, Part 1: Developing for the Rich Client Platform, the Ganymede way

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