Learning Trail - Eclipse Plug-in Development using Java

This online learning trail is intended for Java developers who wish to start working on Eclipse plug-in development.

The trail should be followed step-by-step. Where examples are provided, the reader should work through them.

Total time required:

1.5 days for Basic Java
5 days for Advanced Java [Mandatory only for senior developers]
10 days for Eclipse

The trail concludes with a list of essential downloads for developing Eclipse plug-ins in Java. All downloads are free.

If you need a product development partner, I recommend the Eclipse Gang.

Keith Harrison-Broninski
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Section	Subsection	Trail	Effort in days
Basic Java	Language Follow these Sun Microsystems trails to make sure there are no gaps in your basic Java language knowledge	The Java Technology Phenomenon Generics Essential Classes Internationalization Reflection Security	0.5
Basic Java	Style	I have to document THAT? Good housekeeping practices The exceptions debate Book: The Elements of Java Style [a small book to read and always keep on your desk]	1
TOTAL BASIC JAVA			1.5
Advanced Java Mandatory only for senior developers	Configuration Management	The Flow of Change	0.25
	User Interaction Design	Book: About Face 2.0: The Essentials of Interaction Design [a big book - skim then read at your leisure]	0.75
	Concurrency	Characterizing thread safety Concurrent collections classes	0.25
	Agile Methods	The New Methodology Becoming Agile Agile Requirements Management Agile Documentation	0.75
	Test Driven Design	Introduction to Test Driven Design Mocks Aren't Stubs Continuous Integration	0.5
	Design Patterns	Introduction to Design Patterns Catalogue of Design Patterns Refactoring Application Facades Inversion of Control Containers and the Dependency Injection pattern [Optional] Antipatterns [Optional]	2
	Data Mapping	The Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch Mapping Objects to Relational Databases: O/R Mapping In Detail	0.5
TOTAL ADVANCED JAVA			5
Eclipse	Java IDE	Java Programming with Eclipse [Training Course]	1
	Plug-in Development	Developing Plug-ins for Eclipse [Training Course] SWT: Basics More about Layouts Visual Editor JFace & TreeViewer Forms Views Perspectives Resources: Deltas Markers Decorators Wizards Preference Pages: Basics FieldEditors Help Concurrency Internationalization: Implementing Testing Bundles: Part 1: Your first bundle Part 2: Interacting with the Framework Part 3: Dependencies between Bundles Part 4: Registering a Service [Optional] Part 5: Consuming a Service [Optional] Part 6: Dynamic Service Tracking [Optional]	4
	Rich Client Platform (RCP)	Why use Eclipse RCP? RCP Tutorial: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Customizing Eclipse RCP applications, Part 1: Techniques to use with SWT and JFace RCP deployment to multiple platforms Branding Obfuscation	1
	Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)	Using EMF Using EMF to generate RCP applications EMF Overview Generating an EMF Model	2
	Graphical Modeling Framework (GMF)	Introducing the GMF Runtime GMF in 15 Minutes GMF Tutorial: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4	2
TOTAL ECLIPSE			10
Further Reading [Optional - for reference as needed]		Eclipse articles, podcasts, screencasts, and training materials Eclipse wiki
Essential Downloads Choose a stable release of Eclipse GMF, then use its dependencies to choose other Eclipse releases		Eclipse GMF (SDK and examples) E clipse E MF (EMF+SDO+XSD SDK and examples) E clipse E MF OCL E clipse E MF Validation E clipse E MF Query Eclipse EMF Transaction Eclipse GEF Eclipse Platform (SDK and RCP delta pack) Subclipse [Update site] - Subversion integration JAutoDoc - Javadoc generation JDocEditor - WYSIWYG Javadoc editor FindBugs [Update site] - Static analysis of code quality