Field editors
The implementation of a preference page is primarily SWT code. SWT code is
used to create the preference page controls, set the values of the controls, and
retrieve the values of the controls. The
org.eclipse.jface.preference
package provides helper classes, called field editors, that create the widgets and implement the value setting
and retrieval code for the most common preference types. The platform provides field editors for displaying and updating
many value types, including booleans, colors, strings, integers, fonts, and file names.
FieldEditorPreferencePage
implements a
page that uses these field editors to display and store the preference values on the page.
Instead of creating SWT controls to fill its contents, a
FieldEditorPreferencePage
subclass creates field editors to display the contents. All of the fields
on the page must be implemented as field editors. The following is a
snippet from the debug UI preferences page:
protected void createFieldEditors() {
addField(new BooleanFieldEditor(IDebugUIConstants.PREF_BUILD_BEFORE_LAUNCH,
DebugPreferencesMessages.getString("DebugPreferencePage.auto_build_before_launch"),
SWT.NONE, getFieldEditorParent()));
...
String[][] perspectiveNamesAndIds = getPerspectiveNamesAndIds();
addField(new ComboFieldEditor(IDebugUIConstants.PREF_SHOW_DEBUG_PERSPECTIVE_DEFAULT,
DebugPreferencesMessages.getString("DebugPreferencePage.Default_perspective_for_Debug_2"), //$NON-NLS-1$
perspectiveNamesAndIds,
getFieldEditorParent()));
...
}
Each field editor is assigned the name of its corresponding preference key and the text label for the SWT
control that it will create. The kind of control created depends on the type of field editor. For example, a boolean field editor creates a checkbox.
Since the preference page is associated with a preference store (specified in the
doGetPreferenceStore method), the code for storing the current values,
for initializing the control values from the preference store, and for restoring the controls to
their default values can all be implemented in the
FieldEditorPreferencePage
.
The
FieldEditorPreferencePage
will use a grid layout with one column as the default layout for field editor
widgets. For special layout requirements, you can override the createContents method.
