Eclipse Plug-ins (3rd Edition) Review

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Eclipse Plug-ins (3rd Edition) ReviewThis book is the better one I have found for learning about plugin development for Eclipse. Most books present a very simple example which fails given the scope of Eclipse and the multitude of extension points. This one doesn't. It tries to address all the things that you may want to do (put an action in different places, integrating with different resource types (files,etc) and existing views (editors,etc), saving, UI, UI decoration, and on and on).
It takes a project and puts it through a complete development cycle building and adding features through the book. While I typically don't like books that take a single example and develop it throughout, this has enough meat to make it very useful. Sections that introduce different concepts/areas, will also give you extension points/view names for those areas so I can see the book as a valuable reference after the initial read.
One very cool thing with the sample project is that the authors develop JUnit tests for the UI actions and things. This shows not only how to automate testing of the UI features, but how eclipse calls your plugins. This provides additional insight that is useful not only in testing, but also in feature development. As it shows you how to load/find certain things programmatically.
If you use books as a tutorial from end-to-end, and tend to type over the examples to build mechanical memory of code, you may run into a few small snags. Chapter 7 misses listing some of the classes you are going to need (minor types, which you can figure out), and some minor disagreements in the code will create errors in the project, but these are easy to fix.
The code style is OK, but could be more concise and streamlined at times.
I would have given the book 5 stars if it wasn't because the book was developed under a pre-release of Eclipse 3.0. This made for some of the screen shots to be inconsistent, and very few of the api calls used in the examples are deprecated. This is more for Addison-Wesley than for the authors. Publishers always want to release books early, and this is hard on both writers (writing against a changing target) and the readers getting something that doesn't match the actual product.Eclipse Plug-ins (3rd Edition) OverviewProducing a commercial-quality plug-in means going above and beyond the minimal requirements needed to integrate with Eclipse. It means attending to all those details that contribute to the "fit and polish" of a commercial offering. This comprehensive guide covers the entire process of plug-in development, including all the extra steps needed to achieve the highest quality results.Building on two internationally best-selling previous editions, Eclipse Plug-ins, Third Edition, has been fully revised to reflect the powerful new capabilities of Eclipse 3.4. Leading Eclipse experts Eric Clayberg and Dan Rubel present detailed, practical coverage of every aspect of plug-in development, as well as specific, proven solutions for the challenges developers are most likely to encounter. All code examples, relevant API listings, diagrams, and screen captures have been thoroughly updated to reflect both the Eclipse 3.4 API and the latest Java syntax. In addition, Clayberg and Rubel have completely revamped their popular Favorites View case study, reworking much of its content and recreating its code from scratch. The authors carefully cover new functionality added to existing Eclipse features, such as views and editors, and fully explain brand-new features such as Commands, GEF, and PDE Build.This extensively revised edition
Thoroughly covers Eclipse's new preferences
Illuminates the powerful new Eclipse Command Framework, which replaces Eclipse's older Action Framework
Presents extensive new discussions of using commands with views and editors
Introduces Mylyn, the new task-focused interface that reduces information overload and simplifies multi-tasking
Contains an all-new chapter on using the Graphical Editing Framework (GEF) to build dynamic, interactive graphical user interface elements
Walks you step by step through the entire PDE Build process
Shows how to create update sites with p2, which replaces Eclipse's old Update Manager
This book is designed for every experienced developer interested in extending the Eclipse platform, the Rational Software Development Platform, or any other platform that supports Eclipse plug-ins.

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