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  • Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    Karsten Lehmann  9 July 2009 16:08:21
    As a prerequisite for our XPages series here is a tool that will really save you time.

    We will work a lot in the Java perspective of DDE for our XPage development. To switch to this perspective, you can click "Window/Open Perspective" in Designer and select the Java perspective in the upcoming selection dialog:

    Image:Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    Do you see it? These are a lot of perspectives. In fact, this dialog shows all the Eclipse perspectives for both Notes client and DDE. No filtering is applied to the list, so switching from Designer to Java perspective and back takes a while. After doing this a few times, you are really going nuts. ;-)

    Solution

    Thanks to the Eclipse background of DDE, it's quite easy to add a toolbar to switch between the most popular perspectives (Designer, Java, Debug) with one mouse click:

    Image:Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    Download
    The archive contains an Eclipse Update Site with the toolbar definition and code:
    Mindoo_DDE_Perspective_Switcher.zip

    And for the interested, here is the Eclipse workspace with the source code:
    Mindoo DDE Perspective Switcher Workspace.zip

    Installation
    To install the toolbar, you need to insert the line "com.ibm.notes.branding/enable.update.ui=true" in the plugin_customization.ini file in the directory "...\IBM\Lotus\Notes\framework". Then restart the client, select "File/Application/Install" and add the directory of the Update Site.

    I did not create a widget based installation for this tool, because I expect developers will be able to do the manual installation.
    Writing the tool took half an hour. Actually, finding out how to restrict the toolbar's visibility to the DDE took most of the time, because at first, you could also see it in the Notes client. DDE and the Notes client share the same Eclipse workspace, so plugins that you add to the DDE are automatically also active in the Notes Client.

     
    Comments

    1RobShaver  20.07.2009 17:00:39  Flex Builder

    Thanks for such a helpful blog. I'm new to Eclipse and Notes 8.5. I'd like to explore the possibility of using Flex with XPages.

    Since you guys seem to be deep into Eclipse, and since FlexBuilder is based on Eclipse, do you know if it is possible to have one Eclipse installation that has a perspective that, in addition to the three you are talking about, includes Flex?

    2Karsten Lehmann  20.07.2009 20:44:26  Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    Sorry, I don't have any experience with FlexBuilder. Maybe someone else has a solution.

    If FlexBuilder is just a collection of Eclipse features and plugins running as a RCP application, there may be a way to extract them, create an update site with them and install them in a normal Eclipse environment.

    But I would not expect it to be that easy and it would probably break the FlexBuilder license.

    3Jerry Shelley  03.09.2009 17:01:14  Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    I found "plugin_customization.ini" to be located in my ..\Lotus\Notes\framework\rcp\" folder.

    Hope that helps someone. Jerry.

    4Artur Pecko  31.10.2009 02:04:44  Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    Have you ever tried using Ctrl-F8. As I found recently, it allows you to switch perspective between Java and Domino Developer quickly.

    Cheers,

    Artur

    5Karsten Lehmann  31.10.2009 10:23:15  Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    Artur,

    I just tried it in the 8.5.1 Designer. Doesn't work for me. The Designer does nothing when I press Ctrl-F8.

    Best regards,

    Karsten

    6Artur Pecko  31.10.2009 15:39:19  Free tool to quickly change perspectives in Domino Designer on Eclipse (DDE)

    It's also noted in wiki as well along with other shortcuts. Check it out.

    { Link }

    Artur