UI Forms

UI Forms is an optional Rich Client plug-in based on SWT and JFace that provides the support for creating portable web-style user interfaces across all Eclipse UI categories. It provides a few carefully chosen custom widgets, layouts and support classes required to achieve the desired Web look. Being based on SWT, they are inherently portable across all the platforms where SWT is supported.

UI Forms break the established expectations on which classes of widgets can be expected in Eclipse workbench UI categories (editors, views, wizards, dialogs). An Eclipse form can appear in any and all of them, expanding the possibilities of the UI developers to use the most appropriate concept for the task regardless where they are.

Eclipse Forms add the following to make web-style user interfaces possible:

• A concept of a 'form' that is suitable for inclusion in the content areas such as views and editors
• A toolkit that manages colors, hyperlink groups and other aspects of a form, as well as serve as a factory for a number of SWT controls
• A new layout manager that lays out controls similar to HTML table layout algorithm
• A set of custom control designed to fit in the form (hyperlink, image hyperlink, scrollable composite, section)
• A multi-page editor where each page is a form (e.g. PDE manifest editors)