Eclipse Plug-in Developer Guide
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Creating a custom filtered items selection dialog

In this example, we will contribute a basic search dialog to illustrate the steps needed to create a custom subclass of FilteredItemsSelectionDialog.

1. Create a new Plug-in Project using Hello, world template.
2. Create a class extending org.eclipse.ui.dialogs.FilteredItemsSelectionDialog. Let's name it FilteredResourcesSelectionDialogExample.
3. Choose a source of the resources that will be used during filtering. In our example we will generate our own set of random strings as follows:

      private static ArrayList resources = new ArrayList();
      
      static {
         generateRescourcesTestCases('A', 'C', 8, ""); //$NON-NLS-1$
         generateRescourcesTestCases('a', 'c', 4, ""); //$NON-NLS-1$
      }
   
      private static void generateRescourcesTestCases(char startChar, char endChar, int length, String resource){
         for (char ch = startChar; ch <= endChar; ch++) {
            String res = resource + String.valueOf(ch);
            if (length == res.length()) 
               resources.add(res);
            else if ((res.trim().length() % 2) == 0)
               generateRescourcesTestCases(Character.toUpperCase((char)(startChar + 1)), Character.toUpperCase((char)(endChar + 1)), length, res);
            else 
               generateRescourcesTestCases(Character.toLowerCase((char)(startChar + 1)), Character.toLowerCase((char)(endChar + 1)), length, res);
         }
      }
   

4. Now, let's implement abstract methods from the FilteredItemsSelectionDialog class.
   • createExtendedContentArea(Composite): This method creates an extra content area located above the details. For now, we will just return null because we don't need any extra fields for this simple example:

        protected Control createExtendedContentArea(Composite parent) {
           return null;
        }

   • createFilter(): Creates a new instance of a filter. In the simplest implementation you should also extend FilteredItemsSelectionDialog.ItemsFilter and implement the abstract methods. Eg.:

        protected ItemsFilter createFilter() {
           return new ItemsFilter() {
              public boolean matchItem(Object item) {
                 return matches(item.toString());
              }
              public boolean isConsistentItem(Object item) {
                 return true;
              }
           };
        }

   • fillContentProvider(FilteredItemsSelectionDialog.AbstractContentProvider, FilteredItemsSelectionDialog.ItemsFilter, org.eclipse.core.runtime.IProgressMonitor): Fills the content provider with matching items. Eg.:

        protected void fillContentProvider(AbstractContentProvider contentProvider,
           ItemsFilter itemsFilter, IProgressMonitor progressMonitor)
              throws CoreException {
           progressMonitor.beginTask("Searching", resources.size()); //$NON-NLS-1$
           for (Iterator iter = resources.iterator(); iter.hasNext();) {
              contentProvider.add(iter.next(), itemsFilter);
              progressMonitor.worked(1);
           }
           progressMonitor.done();
        }

   • getDialogSettings(): Returns the settings object that stores information about how the dialog information is persisted. This method can't return null, so we'll just return a simple settings object:

        private static final String DIALOG_SETTINGS = "FilteredResourcesSelectionDialogExampleSettings";	
     		
        protected IDialogSettings getDialogSettings() {
           	IDialogSettings settings = Activator.getDefault().getDialogSettings()
     				.getSection(DIALOG_SETTINGS);
     		if (settings == null) {
     			settings = Activator.getDefault().getDialogSettings()
     					.addNewSection(DIALOG_SETTINGS);
     		}
     		return settings;
        }

   • getElementName(Object): Returns a name for the given object. This is used to check duplicates.

        public String getElementName(Object item) {
           return item.toString();
        }

   • getItemsComparator(): Returns a comparator used to sort items. In our example we will just use standard string comparison:

        protected Comparator getItemsComparator() {
           return new Comparator() {
              public int compare(Object arg0, Object arg1) {
                 return arg0.toString().compareTo(arg1.toString());
              }
           };
        }

   • validateItem(Object): Validates that the item is a valid selection. In our example we just return an OK status, because all items are valid:

        protected IStatus validateItem(Object item) {
           return Status.OK_STATUS;
        }

5. Add title of dialog and set simple implementation of SelectionHistory on dialog:

   	public FilteredResourcesSelectionDialogExample(Shell shell, boolean multi) {
   	   super(shell, multi);
   	   setTitle("Filtered Resources Selection Dialog Example");
   	   setSelectionHistory(new ResourceSelectionHistory());
   	}
   	
   	private class ResourceSelectionHistory extends SelectionHistory {
   	   protected Object restoreItemFromMemento(IMemento element) {
   		  return null; 
   	   }
   	   protected void storeItemToMemento(Object item, IMemento element) {
   	   }
   	}

6. Change run(IAction) method from SimpleAction to:

   	public void run(IAction action) {
   	   Shell shell = new Shell();
   	   FilteredItemsSelectionDialog dialog = new FilteredResourcesSelectionDialogExample(shell, true);
   	   dialog.setInitialPattern("a");
   	   dialog.open();
   	}

7. Change tooltip of SimpleAction from "Hello, Eclipse world" to "Filtered Items Selection Dialog Example".
8. Run Eclipse with created plug-in.
9. The resulting dialog looks as follows: