Information center customization

All of the customizations which can apply to the Eclipse help system can also be applied to an Eclipse information center including product specific branding, style sheets, banner and ordering of books. The easiest way to do this is to create a plug-in which implements the org.eclipse.core.runtime.products extension point and place all the customization in that plugin.

The Help system itself is divided up into a number of separate plug-ins. These tables shows available preferences, and which plug-in defines them.

Creating a product plug-in

A product plugin can be created using the menu item File/New/Project and selecting Plug-in Project. Uncheck the check box titled "Create Java Project", give the project a name, hit "next" and "finish" to exit the wizard. In the extensions tab of the plug-in manifest editor add the extension "org.eclipse.core.runtime.products" and give it a name. Create a product element beneath that and give it a name. Beneath the product element add a property element and set "preferenceCustomization" to "plugin_customization.ini". plugin.xml will now contain entries similar to the following.

 <extension
         id="custom"
         point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.products">
      <product
            application="org.eclipse.ui.ide.workbench"
            description="This is my custom product"
            name="Custom Product">
         <property
               name="preferenceCustomization"
               value="plugin_customization.ini">
         </property>
      </product>
   </extension>

Installing the product plug-in

Export the product plug-in as a deployable plug-in. Copy the jar file for the exported plug-in to the "dropins" folder in the eclipse installation which will be used to start the information center. Start the information center with an additional argument to specify the product. For example if the product plugin is called help.product and its product id is "custom" add the argument "-product help.product.custom". Open the information center, the title will now show the customized product name.

Additional customization

Modify plugin_customization.ini in the product plugin to add more customizations, see Help system customization, re-export and replace the plug-in in the dropins folder. To modify the banner a line like this could be added to plugin_custiomization.ini.

org.eclipse.help.base/banner=/org.eclipse.help.webapp/advanced/banner.html