Recently I started playing around with the great Trident animation library (by Kirill Grouchnikov). Boris Bokowski was so kind to provide a bundle-fied version of Trident in the e4 repository, so I could integrate it easily into my e4 Contacts demo. The first thing I wanted to try out was to animate the splash screen. Since the new year has just started, I integrated the Trident fireworks demo with very few modifications. Since e4 has no SplashHandler support (yet ), I hacked the start up of the E4Application class a bit and inserted a new SWT Shell, running the Fireworks animation.
I have created a little screen capture animation how the start up of the e4 contacts demo looks with animated splash screen. Click on the picture below to start the animation.
A very common use case in a domain specific RCP app is to update itself using p2. When deploying this app, it would be very convenient if a list of predefined update sites could be available for the application at the first start. This was possible (but not trivial) even with Eclipse 3.4. But now, with Eclipse 3.5.1, it is very easy to do:
Put your product configuration file in a bundle (plug-in project), not in a feature
Create a file at top level and name it p2.inf
Put the following content in the file:
instructions.configure=\
addRepository(type:0,location:YOUR METADATA REPOSITORY);\
addRepository(type:1,location:YOUR ARTIFACT REPOSITORY);
Don’t forget to include p2.inf in the build.properties
You find a working example in my MP3 Manager demo application:
Just to adopt the latest service release, my MP3 Manager Eclipse RCP demo is now based on Eclipse 3.5.1. Compared to version 3.5.0 there is no new functionality, but there is a new bug . The splash handler does not work anymore, I have created a bug (291920) already.
Addition: Bug 291920 is fixed. SplashHandlers need an additional splashHandlerProductBinding extension. I just added one and everything works again.
Long time ago I was ask by Kevlin Henney, the editor of 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know, if I would like to contribute one or two articles. I felt flattered by this question and agreed to write something. With Kevlin’s help as editor, my two contributions made it in the list of Edited Contributions. Sometime around the middle of October, 97 contributions will be picked from the Edited Contributions and published in O’Reilly’s 97 Things series.
I just released version 3.5 of my Open Source Eclipse RCP demo application. You find more information here.
New & Noteworthy:
Eclipse 3.5.0 compliant
MP3 Song “Another Chance” included
- Composed, played and mixed by myself
- You find it in the project com.siemens.ct.mp3m.feature.songs
- After a product export, it is automatically included
Better project/feature structure
Using latest p2 for self updating
- Including p2.inf with touchpoint instructions
3.5 compliant headless p2-enabled build
- Simplified using p2.gathering=true
In June 2009 my family and I spent a wonderful day at the Gardens of Trauttmansdorff Castle. Trauttmansdorff Castle is very close to Merano, Italy (South Tirol). I took my Canon HF 100 and tried to catch some of the beautiful scenery, plants and flowers. The background music I played myself and recorded it with Cubase AI 4 and free VST instruments. If you like the music, you can download a shorter version of this song from another blog entry.
I just released a new Smooth Jazz song “Another Chance”. If you like Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Brian Culbertson, Lee Ritenour etc., then I would be interested in how you like my song. Since I want to use it as background music for one of my recent movies, I made it a bit longer than the usual 3-4 minutes. I played everything myself and used Cubase AI 4 as DAW and free VST instruments from xfactor. You can download a high quality wma (12 MB) or a medium quality mp3 (5 MB). The two files are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License. Any feedback would be appreciated.
I enhanced the gradient support a bit, now e4 supports basic radial gradients, too. The implementation is not finished yet but a good starting point. To get the best possible performance it would be great if radial gradients could be supported by SWT directly. In the future, I would like to support a similar functionality compared to WebKit’s css gradients. The following screenshot shows the current version of my e4 contacts demo with radial gradient backgrounds.
Instructions how to install and run the contacts demo you find here.
), I hacked the start up of the E4Application class a bit and inserted a new SWT Shell, running the Fireworks animation.
. The splash handler does not work anymore, I have created a 
