VE Extension Points

Eclipse Plug-ins can declare extension points. These are public interfaces that plug-in developers can use to extend a plug-in's behaviour. Eclipse VE is actually comprised of several different plug-ins. Two of these, org.eclipse.ve.cde and org.eclipse.ve.java.core declare extension points;-

• org.eclipse.ve.java.core.style – allows the definition of different sets of code generation styles. Each style defines a number of different rules such as IChildRule, IPropertyRule, IInstanceVariableRule etc. These rules are used by the Eclipse VE to determine elements such as code patterns (names, style, placement, scope, etc.) and filter policies for code portions. The particular coding style can be selected by the user. In practice only one coding style is available , the GetterStyle.
• org.eclipse.ve.internal.java.core.vce.lookandfeel – can be used to add a new 'look and feel' that will appear on the Visual Editor preference pages and can be selected by the user
• org.eclipse.ve.java.core.newsource – the function of this extension point is now fulfilled by org.eclipse.ve.java.core.newStyleComponent
• org.eclipse.ve.java.core.newStyleComponent – used to register new visual class styles and component extensions that will appear within Visual Class Creation Wizard, and are typically used to create new style classes for the Visual Editor.
• org.eclipse.ve.java.core.choosebean – allows for customizing the ChooseBean dialogue accessible from the palette
• org.eclipse.ve.java.core.contributors – used to supply configuration contributors to VE. Also used to point to an xmi file that will be used to add entries to the palette.
• org.eclipse.ve.java.core.registrations – used to register the libraries that should be used for a classpath container of type org.eclipse.ve.internal.java.core.RegisteredClasspathContainerInitializer.
• org.eclipse.ve.cde.adapter – an 'internal' extension point intended only for use by the Eclipse VE plug-ins themselves
• org.eclipse.ve.cde.editPartContributor - allows EditPartContributor instances to be added to an EditPart. Contributors for both Tree- and GraphicalEditParts can be contributed.

The following extension points are also commonly used to extend Eclipse VE's behaviour;-

• org.eclipse.ui.popupMenus – used to add new actions to pop-up context menus.
• org.eclipse.jem.beaninfo.registrations – used to register contributors, override files and BeanInfo classes
• org.eclipse.ui.editors – this defines the Visual Editor itself as org.eclipse.ve.internal.java.core.codegen.editorpart.JavaVisualEditorPart. This is the starting point for the Visual Editor.