JDocEditor
An Eclipse plugin that contributes a WYSIWYG JavaDoc editor to the JDT platform.
A nearly complete rewrite, now using pure SWT controls to achieve faster start-up, more efficient run-time operation, and lower operating resource requirements.
The key change is complete replacement of the SWT_AWT bridge and Swing HtmlEditorKit controls with a StyledText-based HTML WYSIWYG editor control, with supporting CSS query and spelling correction engines.
Other architectural changes include relaxing reliance on the Content Outline View and removes direct reliance on Eclipse internal packages. JDocEditor now properly recognizes navigation events from the current active JDT editor as well as the Outline, and the Outline is not required to be open to use JDocEditor. This version should be fully compatible with JDT-based Eclipse derivatives, such as WebSphere.
Features
- A full WYSIWYG JavaDoc content editor implemented in an Eclipse view and seamlessly linked to the active JDT editor.
- Provides a full complement of word processing functions appropriate for composing and revising JavaDoc content
- Implements a real-time spelling checker for JavaDoc text.
- Supports editing of package comments as ordinary JavaDoc.
- Comment editing is bidirectionally linked, in realtime.
- New JavaDoc comment blocks can be automatically generated, updated, and repaired from the right-click menu.
- Class, constructor, and method signature types are hyper-linked to the full JavaDoc pages. JDocEditor has automatic access to the Eclipse platform JavaDoc and can be configured to transparently access any JavaDoc repository, local or remote, such as JDocs, and present the JavaDoc pages in the platform help browser.
Screen Shot
- Left pane is a full WYSIWYG, rich content editor with real-time link to the JDT editor.
- Right pane presents the current package, constructor, field, method signature with active hyperlinks that will invoke the platform help system to display corresponding JavaDoc API pages.
- Toolbar can be positioned above or below the view panes.
Development State
- Stable. Please report any unexpected operation.
- Relies on a number of subpackages that have not yet been significantly optimized. Please report any performance related limitations.
- Future versions are planned to include an Html cleaning function.
Use
Should be intuitive:
- Any valid selection event in the current, active JDT editor will automatically load the JDocEditor with the corresponding JavaDoc content. The Eclipse Content Outline View may also be used to navigate and load JDocEditor with content. The Outline View is not required to be open.
- Right-click menus provide comment correction, tag insertion and repair, and spelling correction options.
- Various shift and control key combinations, standard for the StyledText control, are available (Keystrokes).
Installation & Requirements
To install:
Versions 3.4+
- Install using Eclipse update site: http://www.certiv.net/updates
Prior Versions
- Extract the zip file to the Eclipse dropins directory.
- To enable the spell checker, set the path to an OpenOffice.org spelling dictionary in the the JDocEditor3 preferences. English and Spanish dictionaries are included in the plugin jar and can be copied out to a convenient directory -- the personal dictionary will be created in the same directory. For English, use the us_US.zip dictionary.
- To enable custom styling of the JDocEditor panes, set a path to an existing stylesheet in the the JDocEditor3 preferences. A default stylesheet (default.css) is included in the plugin jar. Just copy it out to a convenient directory and modify. To support Unicode, make sure the first body#font-family font is a Unicode font.
Requirements:
- JDocEditor 3.4.x: Eclipse 3.5.x/JDK 1.6.x
- JDocEditor 3.3.x: Eclipse 3.5.x/JDK 1.6.x
- JDocEditor 3.2.x: Eclipse 3.4.x/JDK 1.6.x
- JDocEditor 2.x.x: Eclipse 3.3.x/JDK 1.5.x
Subprojects
JDocEditor3 is built using a variety of subpackages. Some of the custom packages include:
- "StyledHtml": a WYSIWYG Html editor extension of the standard SWT StyledText control.
- "CssQuery": a pure Java implementation of a CSS query engine
- "SwtSpell": an SWT spell checker using OpenOffice dictionaries
- "SwtUtil": includes a caching resource manager that can be used stand-alone or transparently integrate in a plugin or RCP application.
Faq
Check the "JDocEditor Faq" for preference settings, answers to common problems, and other helpful tips.
License
Available only under these terms:
- License: A personal right to use, as is, and nothing more; distribution of any component or part to any other person or entity is specifically prohibited.
- Warranties: Absolutely none of any cognizable nature including MERCHANTABILITY and/or FITNESS FOR ANY GENERAL OR SPECIFIC PURPOSE OR USE. In fact, be forewarned that use of this software will fail, will likely cause failures in other software, and will likely result in the loss of data.
- If you use this software, then you agree to these terms.