An IDE is powerful as it provides a number of different utility windows to help the developer as they do their job. It becomes more powerful when they can customize it to their own taste, whether it is something as simple as colors, or something more targeted such as filters. The preference store in Eclipse allows users to customize it in the way they want.
In this chapter we shall:
PreferenceStore
PreferencePage
using FieldEditors
FieldEditors
IEclipsePreferences
and IPreferenceStore
A user preference is a stored configuration option that persists between different Eclipse runtimes. Preferences are simple values (int
, String
, boolean
, and so on) and are identified with a String
key, typically prefixed with the plug-in's identifier. Preferences can also be edited via a standard preference panel injected with an extension point. They can also be imported and exported from an Eclipse workbench using File | Import/Export | Preferences and saved as an
epf (Eclipse Preference File).