I am in charge of refactoring the popup menus in my company's Eclipse Plugin to use the new commands/handler/menu extension point scheme. We had some business logic for when certain menu items should enabled or not, and this was handled through the onSelectionChanged method of the SelectionListener they applied to the action. I am now trying to control the enablement using a custom PropertyTester, but it seems that my custom PropertyTesters are not being loaded. I've followed Eclipse's doc as well as any tutorials I could find online and for some reason it just does not want to work. Even if I simply set the "test" method to return true, it doesn't work because the tester is never even loaded (I threw some break points in and they never get hit). I've tried setting the "forcePluginActivation='true'" flag in the test in the xml, but that also does not remedy the situation. Here is some code, with the company name replaced by "company" and the product replaced by "product"...
COMMAND XML
<extension
point="org.eclipse.ui.commands">
<command
categoryId="com.company.product.android.core.category2"
id="com.company.product.android.core.commands.convertToProduct"
name="Convert to product Android Project"
description="The resources, jars and native library to begin developing an product for Android project application will be added to the Android project">
</command>
<category
id="com.company.product.android.core.category2"
name="Product Tools">
</category>
</extension>
HANDLER XML
<extension
point="org.eclipse.ui.handlers">
<handler
class="com.company.product.android.core.commands.ConvertToProduct"
commandId="com.company.product.android.core.commands.convertToProduct">
<enabledWhen>
<reference
definitionId="com.company.product.android.core.expressions.productProject">
</reference>
</enabledWhen>
</handler>
</extension>
DEFINITIONS XML
<extension>
point="org.eclipse.core.expressions.definitions">
<definition
id="com.company.product.android.core.expressions.androidProjectNature">
<with variable="selection">
<iterate ifEmpty="false">
<test
property="org.eclipse.core.resources.projectNature"
value="com.android.ide.eclipse.adt.AndroidNature">
</test>
</iterate>
</with>
</definition>
<definition
id="com.company.product.android.core.expressions.productProject">
<with variable="selection">
<iterate ifEmpty="false">
<test
property="com.company.product.android.expressions.productProjectProperty"
forcePluginActivation="true">
</test>
</iterate>
</with>
</definition>
</extension>
MENU XML
<extension
point="org.eclipse.ui.menus">
<menuContribution
locationURI="popup:org.eclipse.ui.navigator.ProjectExplorer#PopupMenu?after=additions">
<menu
icon="icons/wht_ws.gif"
id="com.company.product.android.core.tools"
label="Product Tools">
<visibleWhen>
<reference
definitionId="com.company.product.android.core.expressions.androidProjectNature">
</reference>
</visibleWhen>
<command
commandId="com.company.product.android.core.commands.convertToProduct"
label="Convert to Product Android Project"
tooltip="The resources, jars and native library to begin developing an product for Android project application will be added to the Android project.">
</command>
</menu>
</menuContribution>
</extension>
PROPERTY TESTER XML
<extension
point="org.eclipse.core.expressions.propertyTesters">
<propertyTester
class="com.company.product.android.core.expressions.ProductProjectTester"
id="com.company.product.android.core.expressions.productProjectTester"
namespace="com.company.product.android.core.expressions"
properties="productProjectProperty"
type="java.lang.Object">
</propertyTester>
</extension>
PROPERTY TESTER JAVA
package com.company.product.android.core.expressions;
import org.eclipse.core.expressions.PropertyTester;
import org.eclipse.jdt.core.IJavaProject;
import org.eclipse.jface.viewers.ISelection;
import org.eclipse.jface.viewers.StructuredSelection;
import org.eclipse.ui.ISelectionService;
import org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI;
import com.company.product.android.core.ProjectUtils;
public class ProductProjectTester extends PropertyTester {
public ProductProjectTester() {
System.out.println("I AM PRODUCT PROJECT TESTER, AND I HAVE BEEN CREATED");
}
@Override
public boolean test(Object receiver, String property, Object[] args,
Object expectedValue) {
//IJavaProject project = null;
//ISelectionService selectionService =
// PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow().getSelectionService();
//ISelection selection = selectionService.getSelection();
//boolean enabled = ProjectUtils.isSingleProjectSelected(selection);
System.out.println("I entered the test method");
boolean enabled = false;
System.out.println("The receiver is a " + receiver.getClass().toString());
IJavaProject project = (IJavaProject)receiver;
//if (enabled && selection instanceof StructuredSelection) {
//project = ProjectUtils.getJavaProject();
if (project != null) {
enabled = ProjectUtils.hasNeedVersion(project)
&& (!ProjectUtils.isProductAndroidProject(project.getProject()));
}
//}
return enabled;
}
}
For the java code, I tried both the current implementation and what is commented out as well. I have tried a lot of different variations that I saw in tutorials that worked for others but not me. The messages are never printed to console, and if i set breakpoints in the constructor or test method, they are never hit. Please let me know if additional information would be useful...
Alright so after 2 days of fighting with this, I was not able to get it to work this way. I followed at least 10 different tutorials on how to get custom property testers to work, but to no avail. I went as far as using the startup extension point to force the plugin to load early. Used a SelectionChangedListener to request updates from the evaluation server anytime the project explorer selection changed. NOTHING seemed like it was going to make the custom property tester work. It simply would not load the property testers... they would never get called by anything, despite everything saying it was set up fine, and perfectly mirror all the tutorials I followed.
Eventually I got tired of trying to make that work and looked for an alternative. What I ended up finding was this: https://web.archive.org/web/20140914172019/https://blog.eclipse-tips.com/2009/02/commands-part-5-authentication-in-rcp.html
I implemented a SourceProvider to have a variable with values corresponding to different project states. I then use , and check which of the possible values it is. Finally, when the plugin loads, I hook a SelectionChangedListener to the PackageExplorer's viewer, so that any time a selection change occurs, then the logic is reevaluated and that variable is changed if needed. Although it's not the ideal way I wanted to do it, it works, and it's not deprecated. I simply couldn't waste more time trying to get the property testers to work...
Hope this helped someone!