Getting Started with Spring RCP

Adding Context Sensitivity

As your application increases in size, fewer actions remain relevant to all views. Not every menu item should be available to every window, for example. This aspect of large applications is referred to as "context sensitivity" or "selection management". Depending on the current context, certain features should be available while other features are hidden or greyed out or disabled.

So, in this section, we will set things up so that the "New" command is only available if the current view is the Customer view. If the current view is not the Customer view, the "New" menu item and toolbar button (first button in the toolbar in the two following screenshots) will be disabled:

Otherwise, both will be enabled. Below you see the "New" toolbar button enabled because the current view is the Customer view:

To achieve the above result, one simply needs to modify the CustomerView class, as follows:

public class CustomerView extends AbstractView {

    /**
     * Handler for the "New" action.
     */
    private ActionCommandExecutor newContactExecutor = new NewExecutor();

    @Override
    protected JComponent createControl() {
        JPanel panel = new CustomerPanel();
        return panel;
    }

    /**
     * Register the local command executor to be 
     * associated with named commands. This is called by 
     * Spring RCP prior
     * to making the view visible.
     */
    @Override
    protected void registerLocalCommandExecutors(PageComponentContext context) {
        context.register("newCommand", newContactExecutor);
    }

    /**
     * Private inner class to create a new customer.
     */
    private class NewExecutor implements ActionCommandExecutor {
        @Override
        public void execute() {
            JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "new customer...");
        }
    }
    
}

Notice lines 20-23 in the code above:

@Override  
protected void registerLocalCommandExecutors(PageComponentContext context) {  
    context.register("newCommand", newContactExecutor);  
}

Reference is made here to "newCommand". Where's that defined? As always, all commands in Spring RCP are defined in "command-context.xml" file. There, note that the "windowCommandManager" bean declares "newCommand", among other commands, under "sharedCommandIds". In each view, a different target executor could be defined for the same command. In the code above, an "ActionCommandExecutor" is defined in the CustomerView, which produces a JOptionPane with a message as a placeholder for real code. In the OtherView, there could be a different way of handling the "newCommand". In other words, though the "newCommand" is globally visible, it is implemented differently per view.

In addition to commands that are defined in "command-context.xml", there are several that are predefined, which you can simply declare in your code:

As a result, for the view above, the commands declared above will be available and implemented as defined in the second argument to "GlobalCommandIds" (all of which are handled by "newContactExecutor", though that's not very likely in real life). Potentially, you could have all or some of these displayed as toolbar buttons in the toolbar, assuming you declare the related tags in the "command-context.xml" file. They would be enabled if the view in which they're declared is active:

...while being disabled in the context of other views:

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Comments

Jacek Furmankiewicz replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 6:31am

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice effort...but the amount of XML config required to make the most basic of setup makes my stomach turn. Really, most of this should be one method call to some common ancestor or static class to register and configure your views.

I don't want to even think what sort of havoc you could wreck on your app if you did any major refactoring of your code and your IDE didn't update the Spring XML files correctly.

It seems like the wrong solution for an issue than in 95% of the cases will not change over time any way and hence does probably not need to be soft-coded in XML, down to every last little detail.

But Spring is the hot kid on the block these days, so I guess that's the way everyone is going...I for once would prefer that someone creates something equivalent but lets you configure it with simple annotations like EJB 3.0. Isn't annotation support part of the new Spring release?

Could this example be re-worked to avoid configuring every single detail in XML and using the new Spring annotations instead?

Geertjan Wielenga replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 6:46am

Hi Jacek. You get to the heart of a central concern with your comment. Several responses possible: Firstly, I imagine that either the sample could be rewritten to use annotations or, if it can't, that a next release of Spring RCP should make that possible. Secondly, you can try the Swing Application Framework (JSR-296) if you want annotations rather than XML. That framework provides for applications of similar size to those provided by the Spring RCP, without requiring XML. (And the risks of relying on JSR-296 seem to be about the same as relying on Spring RCP, at this point). Thirdly, personally, I don't see the problem with configuring stuff in XML files. In that sense, it is simply a question of taste.

Jacek Furmankiewicz replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 6:52am

Yes, but let's face it....since the project lead left to join Adobe, JSR-296 seems to be as dead as the dodo, if I recall correctly.

https://appframework.dev.java.net/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgNo=1567

The last release is from Nov 2007 when Hans was still employed with Sun...doesn't exactly install confidence in the long term viability of this JSR. Say what you want about Spring, but at least it has a large active community.

Geertjan Wielenga replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 6:58am in response to: Jacek Furmankiewicz

[quote=Jacek]

[/quote]

True enough, except that Spring RCP hasn't existed in any real form over the past years. Now it's back but there's no guarantee that it'll go anywhere. (The 1.0.0 release just came out, after two years, and so who knows when the next release will be with us?) I would personally like it to do so (hence this article and hence the tooling I'm providing, should you need evidence), but there's no guarantees (hard to argue with Kirill's comments here). In that sense, depending on Spring RCP is as problematic as depending on JSR-296, but for different reasons. (And that's why I focused only on the technology in this article without being distracted by the politics around it.)

Jacek Furmankiewicz replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 7:03am in response to: Geertjan Wielenga

Kirill always says it like it is. :-)

Lieven Doclo replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 10:15am in response to: Jacek Furmankiewicz

You're right, but the registration you speak of is just the sort of locator pattern we want to refactor out of the system. I'm looking into the annotation based configuration, which works great as long as you don't do a lot of configuration besides injecting other beans (f.e. using a propertyplaceholder configurer in conjunction with the component scanning provided in Spring 2.5 is proving to be a real PITA).

I don't think the XML configuration is that much of a burden, if you have a good IDE with Spring support I don't think you'll have a lot of issues. I've worked in a company where all products were made with Spring RCP, and I haven't encountered any problems concerning writing all those bean definitions. There could be some improvement, but I'm thinking more in the line of custom namespaces.

Anyway, you're right in many ways. Things should be simplified. But then again, writing all my forms in YAML also seems a real hassle, and I'm sure a refactor will certainly cause all sorts havoc there too... :)

Jacek Furmankiewicz replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 10:23am in response to: Lieven Doclo

Point taken :-) I guess I just like YAML a lot more than XML (and I think writing the forms in YAML is a lot less hassle than coding them by hand, but hey...I recognize it's an off the beaten path approach).

It just seems that with Spring it's an all or nothing proposition, even the most basic config stuff is externalized. Seems overkill for 90% of apps.

Peter ___ replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 4:24pm

Great Geertjan!

Thanks a lot!

Does NetBeans handle the refactoring in XML? If yes, how?

>> Secondly, you can try the Swing Application Framework (JSR-296) if you want annotations rather than XML.

Isn't it possible to configure Spring with Java or a scripting language? In picocontainer this is possible with nanocontainer.

Any hints?

Geertjan Wielenga replied on Tue, 2008/07/01 - 4:29pm

No refactoring support of XML is currently handled yet, sorry. Your other question is also good, but I currently don't know the answer. Thanks to you for your earlier article on Spring RCP which inspired this one.

Peter ___ replied on Wed, 2008/07/02 - 2:22am

But wouldn't it be cool to provide those things?

Then NetBeans will be the SpringRC-IDE ;-)

Hint: To create the simple app with your plugin it is required to have the jdk1.6 as default (javax.swing.GroupLayout)

Rohan Ranade replied on Thu, 2008/07/03 - 7:29am

For better NetBeans editor screen shots in Ubuntu - http://blogs.sun.com/gridbag/entry/a_better_look

Weggy Boy replied on Fri, 2008/09/19 - 4:15am

Hello!

Excuse me, if this is the wrong place for such questions.

I was interested in using a view to display the changes made in another view, both dockable.

How would you do that, when the both views are not known and they are created by the VLDockingApplicationPageFactory?

I though I could implement the Observer Pattern, but since the views are created by the factory I can´t get any Observable object registered in the Observer View.

Any Ideas?

Thanks!

Peter ___ replied on Fri, 2008/09/19 - 11:21am in response to: Weggy Boy

Why not adding a listener to the model instead to the view?

Maybe more details are necessary to help you.

Weggy Boy replied on Sat, 2008/09/20 - 3:03am in response to: Peter ___

Thanks for your answer Peter!

What I´ve done is exactly that, just I´m having some problems with the GUI actualization, since the form inputs works on a DialogWizard. The Other docked View must first be "resized" before the changes can be shown... Tipical GUI Problem...

Best Regards!

Wagner

prabith chandran replied on Tue, 2008/10/07 - 8:47am

How to create wizards in springRCP

Pat Daly replied on Thu, 2009/10/01 - 5:30am

Hi Geertjan Love the tutorials. Any plans to do a tutorial on integrating Spring Security. I think it would be of great one to do. Login/Security is almost a basic requirement these days, so seeing an example of it might urge users to adopt its usage earlier. Thanks

venkat narayana replied on Tue, 2009/10/27 - 5:29am

Hi All, How to create rcp application in eclipse .

Suraj Chhetry replied on Wed, 2009/11/11 - 10:56pm

Hi,

I am working on desktop application on Java we have Eclipse RCP,Netbean RCP,Spring RCP and etc. Currenly iam using Netbean RCP but my application using Spring a lot means IOC,AOP and DAO so is it wise to switch to Spring RCP from Netbean RCP ??

Claudia Wu replied on Wed, 2011/08/31 - 9:23am in response to: Suraj Chhetry

Hi Suraj,

I am facing the similar problem. Did you eventually choose Spring RCP or Netbean RCP? Thx.

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