Nuxeo RCP: the developer Guide

To fully works with Nuxeo RCP, Nuxeo EP may have to be bound to its DNS address or IP address. If you have connection errors while connecting with Nuxeo RCP, try the following instructions:

Nuxeo RCP provides a perspective that holds the main Nuxeo RCP views: Window > Open perspective > other ... and Select Nuxeo ECM.

Create a new connection and connect to it with the ECM Applications view.

Once connected, browse the Nuxeo EP content using the ECM Navigator.

Set up your eclipse to build your nuxeo-rcp platform to build your own product can be done using nuxeo-rcp plugins from the update site.

The other way to work with nuxeo-rcp, is to checkout from source. It's useful especially for modifying the nuxeo-rcp product and contribute to the community

That's all. Now you should be able to begin coding your own Nuxeo RCP plug-ins.

This section is about launching the Nuxeo-RCP product that is provide in the source of nuxeo-rcp. For those who have install from the update site, you will wont be able to use the existing Nuxeo-RCP product (Create your own).

Now, you should have all your plugins compiled and you may want to try Nuxeo RCP. First you'll need to have a running Nuxeo ECM (5.2.M1 or later).

From Eclipse, you'll pop up the Debug dialog box of the Nuxeo RCP product file from the Run > open Debug dialog ... menu.

You'll create a new Eclipse application named "Nuxeo RCP" following the figures below:

In the plugin tab, click on "Validate" to make sure that your have the right configuration. If some plugins are missing, it may be because features selected in the product do not have the same version installed in your eclipse. To quickly fix it, select "Launch with: plugins selected below only", "Deselect all" and "add Required Plug-ins". To fix it permanently, remove and readd the features from the product file one by one using the product editor (that will readd the feature with the version install in your computer

Launch Nuxeo RCP by clicking on "Apply" and "Debug".

Once Nuxeo RCP is launched, you should have a connexion view called "ECM Applications" that lets you add Nuxeo ECM server and connect to them.

From the menu (File > export > Plug-in development > Eclipse product), you'll find a wizard page that you'll configure as following:

If you have the Eclipse delta pack installed, you'll even be able to build products for other platforms than yours. Click in "Finish" to build your product(s).

New project -> Plugin development -> plugin project

Because it is a RCP application, you should use "Eclipse version 3.3" as target platform.

Check "no" to the question "Would you like to create a rich client application?": this option is for creating a new rich client application. We won't do that because our plugin will contribute to an existing rich client application

We won't create any template as well.

The others options are up to you.

The method createAdapterFactory() will provide a factory to ViewerManagers to create JFace label and content providers. These providers are managed underline behind adapters. So an adapter will provide pretty the same method than JFace providers that you will have to implement according to your needs.

For comments: see DocumentCommentsAdapter.

Here is how to add a new adapter to a ViewerManager :

protected ItemAdapterFactory createAdapterFactory() {
   ItemAdapterFactory factory = new ItemAdapterFactory();
   factory.registerAdapter(DocumentModel.class, new DocumentCommentsAdapter());
   return factory;
}

Columns are managed with three other ViewerManagers methods.

getColumns will provide the array of String identifier of a column. For these columns, getColumnsHeader will provide the displayed header text. Then the last methods getColumnSize will return the size of the column according to its index.

Here are some simple rules we are going to follow. Theses rules are based on the way Eclipse organize externalization of strings:

Plugin.xml part of the code can also be translatable: you need to change the Manifest file and add the line

Bundle-Localization: plugin

(plugin is the name of the .properties file which contains the translatable stuff, so your .properties file in this case is plugin.properties)

In the plugin.xml, you will replace all the translatable strings with %the.key to get it translated according to the keys in the plugin.properties file.

You may add to the build directory the properties file

At the moment, the only attributes that won't be touched are username and password. It has been told that these attribute are must be present in every ECM application for a user. For the other attributes, it's really up to you and the existing customized Nuxeo user schema on the server side.

If you just want to add attributes to the default schema, you'll just have to create a new plugin that extend the extension point and contribute new attributes from there.

If you don't want to use the default configuration, you can disable the fragment "org.nuxeo.ecm.rcp.usermanager.userformcontribution" which contain an extension with the default attributes. You'll will then create brain new plugin that contains ALL the attributes of the user (except username and password of course).

Each "org.nuxeo.ecm.rcp.usermanager.userFormsContributor" extension will provide a class that implements "org.nuxeo.ecm.usermanager.utils.IUserFormContributor". This class will define the way forms will retrieve data, display data and update data:

You may look at the javadoc comments of IUserFormContributor for more details. Here is the default configuration you can use as a template for new contributor:

package org.nuxeo.ecm.rcp.usermanager.userformcontribution;

import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List; import org.nuxeo.ecm.core.api.NuxeoPrincipal;
import org.nuxeo.ecm.usermanager.utils.FieldItem;
import org.nuxeo.ecm.usermanager.utils.IUserFormContributor;
import org.nuxeo.ecm.usermanager.utils.UserManagerHelper;
import org.nuxeo.forms.utils.Form;
import org.nuxeo.forms.utils.LabelField;
import org.nuxeo.forms.utils.ListField;
import org.nuxeo.forms.utils.TextField;

public class DefaultUserFormContributor implements IUserFormContributor {
 public static final String FIRSTNAME = "firstname"; //$NON-NLS-1$ 
 public static final String LASTNAME = "lastname"; //$NON-NLS-1$ 
 public static final String COMPANY = "company"; //$NON-NLS-1$ 
 public static final String EMAIL = "email"; //$NON-NLS-1$ 
 public static final String GROUPS = "groups"; //$NON-NLS-1$ 

 public List<FieldItem> viewFormAddFields() { 
  ArrayList<FieldItem> list = new ArrayList<FieldItem>(); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(LASTNAME, new LabelField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_lastname))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(FIRSTNAME, new LabelField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_firstname))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(COMPANY, new LabelField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_company))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(EMAIL, new LabelField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_email))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(GROUPS, new LabelField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_groups, UserManagerHelper.getGroups()))); 
  return list;
 } 

 public List<FieldItem> editFormAddFields() {
  ArrayList<FieldItem> list = new ArrayList<FieldItem>(); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(LASTNAME, new TextField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_lastname))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(FIRSTNAME, new TextField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_firstname))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(COMPANY, new TextField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_company))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(EMAIL, new TextField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_email))); 
  list.add(new FieldItem(GROUPS, new ListField( Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_groups, UserManagerHelper.getGroups())));
  return list;
 } 

 public void loadFromObject(NuxeoPrincipal principal, Form form) { 
  form.set(LASTNAME, principal.getLastName()); 
  form.set(FIRSTNAME, principal.getFirstName()); 
  form.set(COMPANY, principal.getCompany()); 
  form.set(EMAIL, principal.getModel().getProperty("user", EMAIL)); //$NON-NLS-1$
  List<String> listGroup = principal.getGroups(); 
  String s[] = listGroup.toArray(new String[listGroup.size()]);
  form.set(GROUPS, s);
 } 

 public void saveToObject(NuxeoPrincipal principal, Form form) {
  principal.setLastName((String) form.get(LASTNAME)); 
  principal.setFirstName((String) form.get(FIRSTNAME)); 
  principal.setCompany((String) form.get(COMPANY)); 
  principal.getModel().setProperty( "user", EMAIL, (String) form.get(EMAIL)); //$NON-NLS-1$ 
  String[] strings = (String[]) form.get(GROUPS); 
  if (strings != null) { 
   principal.setGroups(Arrays.asList(strings));
  } 
 } 

 public String validate(Form form) { 
  String email = (String) form.get(EMAIL); 
  if (email == null || email.trim().length() == 0) {
   return Messages.DefaultUserFormContributor_validationEmail;
  }
  return null; 
 }
}