Eclipse is an extensible and reliable platform which has been used my thousands of developers. Learning Eclipse platform is very time-consuming, since there are so many features. One way to make it easier is understanding the architecture design. This is about deciphering eclipse platform and designs. The tutorials below use examples to illustrate how eclipse works and explain design patterns used in each layer of the architecture. After reading those short tutorials, you should be able to quickly get start started with Eclipse RCP.
Eclipse Platform
- Plug-in Mechanism of Eclipse
- OSGi Framework Architecture – Three Conceptual Layers
- Eclipse Plug-in Architecture – Extension Processing
- How Eclipse Plugin Works – Analysis of a Simple Menu
Design Patterns Used in Eclipse
- Design Patterns Used in Eclipse Platform – Overview
- Platform – Singleton
- Core Runtime: Adapter – Brief Introduction
- Core Runtime: Adapter – Simple Example
- Core Runtime: Adapter – Show Properties for Items in a View
- Core Workspace – Proxy and Bridge Pattern
- Core Workspace – Composite Pattern
- Core Workspace – Observer
- Core Workspace – Visitor
- SWT – Composite
- SWT – Observer
- SWT – Strategy
Some design patterns used in eclipse is listed above but not illustrated. The reason is they are very straightforward, you can directly check out the design pattern and figure out how it is used in eclipse. It is worth to mention that reading some part of the source code is very helpful for understanding the design. One easy way to do it is downloading Eclipse Classic which includes source code.