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Platform and Equinox API

Platform Changes
Graduation of E4 Lifecycle Annotations Four annotations that have been preliminary API for some time have been graduated. The relevant classes are in package org.eclipse.e4.ui.workbench.lifecycle in the org.eclipse.e4.ui.workbench bundle. This includes PostContextCreate, PreSave, ProcessAdditions and ProcessRemovals.

These changes are part of an ongoing effort to finalize the E4 API.

Type parameters on Core Databinding classes Type parameters have been added to relevant classes and methods in the org.eclipse.core.databinding bundle. This includes DataBindingContext, IConverter and IValidator. This makes code using these classes more explicit and clear and can help catching bugs in an early stage.

Code example: 

    IObservableValue<String> o1 = ...;
    IObservableValue<Integer> o2 = ...;
    DataBindingContext cont = ...;
    IConverter<String, Integer> c = IConverter.create(String.class, Integer.class, Integer::decode);
    UpdateValueStrategy<String, Integer> s = new UpdateValueStrategy<>();
    s.setConverter(c);
    cont.bindValue(o1, o2, s, null);

These changes are part of an ongoing effort to make the databinding API more typesafe. This effort started with the addition of type parameters to the bundles org.eclipse.core.databinding.property and org.eclipse.core.databinding.observable, and will continue with the bundles org.eclipse.core.databinding.beans and org.eclipse.jface.databinding in a future release.

Note: Users of databinding APIs that are not yet updated to take advantage of the type parameters will find that the new type parameters cause raw type warnings in their code. The best way to handle warnings from code that can't be updated is often to suppress these warnings using @SuppressWarnings("rawtypes"). Since the implementation of the databinding classes has not changed, suppressing warnings is a safe thing to do in this case.

Contribute folding to the Generic Editor The Generic Editor provides a new extension point org.eclipse.ui.genericeditor.foldingReconcilers to customize folding.

This example shows how LSP4E could contribute folding reconciler only for editor input supporting a language server:

<extension
      point="org.eclipse.ui.genericeditor.foldingReconcilers">
   <foldingReconciler
         class="org.eclipse.lsp4e.operations.folding.FoldingReconciler"
         contentType="org.eclipse.core.runtime.text">
      <enabledWhen>
         <with
               variable="editorInput">
            <test
                  property="org.eclipse.lsp4e.hasLanguageServer">
            </test>
         </with>
      </enabledWhen>
   </foldingReconciler>
</extension>
When no other folding reconciler is registered for current document, the generic editor uses a strategy which folds blocks of lines based on whitespaces and indentation:

Contribute character pair matcher to the Generic Editor The Generic Editor provides a new extension point org.eclipse.ui.genericeditor.characterPairMatchers to customize character pair matchers (matching brackets).

The Generic Editor examples shows how to manage matching bracket for tag elements of .project file:

<extension
      point="org.eclipse.ui.genericeditor.characterPairMatchers">
   <characterPairMatcher
         class="org.eclipse.ui.genericeditor.examples.dotproject.TagCharacterPairMatcher"
         contentType="org.eclipse.ui.genericeditor.examples.dotproject">
   </characterPairMatcher>
</extension>

SWT Changes
Display week numbers in DateTime calendar

The SWT.DateTime calendar widget will now display week numbers, when the SWT.CALENDAR_WEEKNUMBERS style flag is set.

Note: This is a HINT and currently only works on Windows and Linux/GTK.

New SWT.ALT_GR constant and support for non-US keyboard layouts SWT on GTK3 has added a SWT.ALT_GR constant which can be used to generate special characters requiring the AltGr modifier using the Display.post(Event) method.

The Display.post(Event) method now supports simulating key events for non-US keyboard layouts and the option to send key modifiers together with key characters in a single event.

New event SWT.ZoomChanged added A new event type SWT.ZoomChanged has been added to SWT to notify clients that the SWT zoom has changed. Listeners for the ZoomChanged event should be added to a Shell. The event's detail field contains the new SWT zoom level.

Note: This operation is a hint and is supported on Windows 10 only.

Improved Table and Tree header under dark theme SWT on Windows has made the following improvements to Table and Tree headers, which improves their visibility in Dark theme:
  • Add a new line separator between header and the first row.
  • Draw the header column separators always (irrespective of the value of getLinesVisible()).

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