In the Eclipse SCADA project we finally wanted to create a setup of the server components for the Windows platform. Ideally all the server tasks should be integrated into the Windows service framework, so that you can stop and start services “the Windows way”.

Time again for some new icons for an Eclipse RCP launcher. While The Gimp can easily create XPM and Windows ICO files, when it comes to Mac OS “icns” format, you won’t have any built in support.

Finally, we had the time to complete the Eclipse SCADA Website. There is still a lot missing, but I think it is a good start.

Using Eclipse EMF/Ecore models inside the Eclipse Platform is quite easy. Loading an XML/XMI serialized model file is only a matter of some lines of code. The most interesting thing about this is that the whole Eclipse platform can handle the registration of models and model factories for you. So instead of knowing what model type you are loading, it will be detected and the right model factory will be used for loading and creating your model instance. Even better is the fact that also derived model objects can be loaded that way.

It seems that migrating from Eclipse RCP 3.x to E4 (Eclipse 4.x) is not a quick win. If you already have an RCP based application the switch to E4 turns out to be a real problem. As is the E4 way if you want some sort of “custom” application that features some IDE components (like a perspective switcher or about dialog). It seems a bit strange that the migration from 3 to 4 is such a bumpy ride. Although there a are lots of tutorials, they mostly only scratch the surface of the task to convert a full-blown RCP application. But this should be a rant on E4, I hope that the next releases improve that situation a lot.