Chapter 6Commands and Actions

Commands and actions are two different APIs for accomplishing the same thing: declaring and implementing functions that manifest as menu items and toolbar buttons. The action API has been around since before Eclipse 3.0, while the commands API has only just solidified as of Eclipse 3.3 with small refinements in Eclipse 3.4. It appears that at some point the actions API will be deprecated, moved into a compatibility layer and in the future removed, but much of the Eclipse tooling still makes extensive use of the actions API, not to mention third party tools and IDEs built on top of the Eclipse infrastructure.

Like everything else in Eclipse, commands and actions are defined through various extension points ...

Get Eclipse Plug-ins, Third Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.