Slides from my talk at Eclipse Con North America 2014 (https://www.eclipsecon.org/na2014/session/emfedit-story-adapters) So you need to build a Java application for desktop, mobile or web? You already know that EMF could be helpful in many ways because it handles the burden of writing the data classes (entities) and provides RESTful serialization of those data? Yeah, that is perfectly correct. But how does it help you with changing, or editing, your data? What is the point behind the so-called EMF.Edit framework? During this talk, you will learn how to build the foundations for a rich client application in any widget toolkit (SWT, JavaFX...). Among other things you will learn how to customize the generated EMF editor without messing up with the generated classes. You will learn how the content and label providers are working under the hood to help create your own beautiful, robust and maintainable applications. By the end of this talk you will finally untangle the gordian knot between Adapters, ItemProvider, AdapterFactory, ItemProviderAdapterFactory, AdapterFactoryLabelProvider, AdapterFactoryContentProvider, etc. This talk is dedicated to EMF rookies who know EMF as a generator of JavaBeans on Steroids and want to know more about the steroids themselves (the Adapter framework, the ItemProvider framework and the amazing helper classes around those two). This talk will be full of sample code and demo. All of this material is available on Github https://github.com/mbarbero/econ-na-2014-emf-edit.

1. EMF.Edit
A Story of Adapters
Mikaël Barbero
Obeo
Eclipse Con North America 2014
March 20, 2014
©JohnWilhelmhttp://500px.com/photo/59208448

3. Super
Java
Beans
© Rangizzz http://500px.com/photo/30648317

4. On Steroids
© Max Ellis http://500px.com/photo/57968110

5. © Rangizzz http://500px.com/photo/43660830

6. Today’s Workout Routine
Connecting the Viewer
Changing the Labels
Changing the Content

7. Connecting the
viewers
Exercise 1

9. Model View
Controller

10. Listening for Reacting to
CHANGES

11. notifies
adapts
Notifier Adapter
Listener pattern
Notifier is the observable and Adapter is the observer

12. 5
Notification
Message from the Observable to the Observer

13. TreeViewer
Chain of notifications
Explains the importance of calling dispose()
Adapter
Factory Content
& Label
Provider
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Provider
EObject

14. Update or Refresh
Or how to be smart when notifying the viewer

15. TreeViewer
Adapter
Factory Content
& Label
Provider
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Provider
EObject
#notifyChanged
Update or Refresh
Or how to be smart when notifying the viewer

16. Provider type
Singleton
Book
Item
Provider
Book
Book
Book

17. Provider type
Stateful
Book
Item
Provider
Book
Book
Book
Book
Item
Provider
Book
Item
Provider

19. TreeViewer
Composed Adapter Factory
Look for the proper adapter factory for each type of object
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Adapter
Factory Content
& Label
Provider
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Provider
EObject

21. Code is Available
https://github.com/mbarbero/econ-na-2014-emf-edit
Tags demo1 and demo2

22. Changing the Labels
Exercise 2

23. XXXItemProvider#getText(Object)
Easy

25. src
src-gen
Generation gap pattern
Treat generated code as byte code

26. Item
Book Periodical
BookOn
Tape
Video
Cassette

27. TreeViewer
Adapter
Factory Content
& Label
Provider
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Provider
EObject
Decorators
of AdapterFactory and ItemProvider

28. TreeViewer
Decorators
of AdapterFactory and ItemProvider
Item
Adapter
Factory Content
& Label
Provider
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item
Item
Provider
EObject

30. Code is Available
https://github.com/mbarbero/econ-na-2014-emf-edit
Tag demo3

31. Changing the Contents
Exercise 3

32. XXXItemProvider#getChildren(Object)
Easy

34. TreeNode
Tree Model
Wrap EObjects
EObject
data

35. TreeViewer
Tree Model
Wrap EObjects
Item
Adapter
Factory Content
& Label
Provider
Item
Provider
Adapter
Factory
Item Item
Item
Provider
EObject

36. Beware of too many notifications
Make your item providers stateful
EObject
EObject
EObject

37. Beware of too many notifications
Make your item providers stateful
Tree
Node
Tree
Node
Tree
Node

38. Beware of too many notifications
Make your item providers stateful
Tree
NodeItem
Provider
Tree
NodeItem
Provider
Tree
NodeItem
Provider

39. Beware of too many notifications
Make your item providers stateful
EObject
ItemProvider

40. Beware of too many notifications
Make your item providers stateful
EObject
ItemProvider

41. Beware of too many notifications
Make your item providers stateful

43. Code is Available
https://github.com/mbarbero/econ-na-2014-emf-edit
Tag demo4

44. Connecting the Viewer
Changing the Labels
Changing the Content
Recap

46. Q
&
A

47. Mikaël Barbero
mikael.barbero@obeo.fr
+Mikaël Barbero
@mikbarbero
Obeo
http://www.obeo.fr