Follow Techotopia on Twitter

On-line Guides
All Guides
eBook Store
iOS / Android
Linux for Beginners
Office Productivity
Linux Installation
Linux Security
Linux Utilities
Linux Virtualization
Linux Kernel
System/Network Admin
Programming
Scripting Languages
Development Tools
Web Development
GUI Toolkits/Desktop
Databases
Mail Systems
openSolaris
Eclipse Documentation
Techotopia.com
Virtuatopia.com
Answertopia.com

How To Guides
Virtualization
General System Admin
Linux Security
Linux Filesystems
Web Servers
Graphics & Desktop
PC Hardware
Windows
Problem Solutions
Privacy Policy

  




 

 

Eclipse Platform Plug-in Development Environment Guide
Previous Page Home Next Page

Plug-in

A plug-in is used to group your code into a modular, extendable and sharable unit.

Plug-ins are modular as each plug-in contains some portion of code. The plug-in specifies other plug-ins (or java packages) it requires to be available to run and it also specifies the set of java packages it provides. An Eclipse based program or product will contain multiple plug-ins, which can be added, replaced or removed to alter the functionality of the program.

Plug-ins are extendable using extensions and extension points. A plug-in can provide one or more extension points so other plug-ins can add to the functionality of the plug-in. A plug-in may also provide extensions to connect to other plug-ins.

Plug-ins are sharable. A plug-in can be exported as a directory or as a jar which can be added to other applications. Plug-ins can be grouped into features which can be distributed and installed into applications.

Eclipse plug-ins are based on OSGi bundles. OSGi is used to manage the plug-ins in an Eclipse application. A plug-in must contain a manifest file with valid OSGi headers for plug-in name and version. Extensions and extension points functionality added by Eclipse in addition to OSGi. To use extensions you must provide a plugin.xml file. PDE provides a full featured project and editor for creating and editing these files.

Related reference

Plug-in Editor
New Plug-in Project

Related reference

Fragment
Feature


 
 
  Published under the terms of the Eclipse Public License Version 1.0 ("EPL") Design by Interspire