Section 1.3.  Eclipse RCP Over the Years - Eclipse Rich Client Platform: Designing, Coding, and Packaging Java Applications

1.3. Eclipse RCP Over the Years

The Eclipse project did not start with the intention of building an RCP. Instead, its goal was to create a platform for integrating development tools. Eclipse as an RCP started in the Eclipse 2.1 release timeframe as a hacker activity. The word was out that Eclipse-based IDEs were professional, good-looking, polished, and performed well. A few intrepid developers further observed that the same framework that made tooling easier to write and more attractive could be used to build more generic applications.

By and large they were right, but there were many challenges. The most obvious of these were the interweaving of assumptions based on Eclipse as a tooling platform and the resultant inability to change certain elements of the environment's look and feel.

Eclipse 3.0 was a major enabling step for Eclipse as an RCP. Virtually all of the IDE-related interdependencies were eliminated and many of the different parts of the UI were opened to customization. The groundwork for dynamic plug-in installation, removal, and updating was established with the introduction of an OSGi-based (http://osgi.org) runtime. These two work items amounted to a massive refactoring of the main aspects of the Platform.

With these improvements, interest in RCP rose sharply and commercial applications began to emerge. IBM introduced its Workplace™ products, NASA started using RCP for managing, modeling, and analyzing space missions, and RCP showed up unnoticed in applications in various domains.

This book's release coincides with the release of Eclipse 3.1 and what has really been a "coming of age" for the RCP effort. Eclipse 3.1 contains countless improvements, refinements, and wholesale leaps in the support of diverse application scenarios. The tooling for creating and editing product definitions is one such leap. RCP developers are now able to define the branding, content, and deployment strategies for their products using purpose-built editors and wizards.