Eclipse
RCP - Frequently Asked Questions- What is Eclipse RCP?
- Why use Eclipse RCP?
- When to use Eclipse RCP?
- Who is using Eclipse RCP?
- What are the downsides of Eclipse RCP?
- What is Incremental's experience of RCP?
- What services does Incremental offer?
- Why choose Incremental's training courses?
- How will an Incremental training course benefit me?
Eclipse RCP is a platform for building and deploying rich client applications. It is one of the five pillars of Eclipse.
A rich client is a locally-installed application offering a much richer user experience than is possible via web technologies. The Eclipse IDE is itself a rich client application.
For other examples of RCP applications see:
- screencams of Incremental's own RCP application;
- a pdf presentation of various RCP applications;
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In short, Eclipse RCP allows you to develop superbly functional and supportable applications in a first class development environment. The technology offers:
- a native look and feel via SWT, supporting a powerful GUI toolset in JFace;
- a standards based component model and pervasive extension mechanisms;
- built-in platform services for remote updating, window management, asynchronous operations, help and much more;
- huge industry backing and a vibrant development community.
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Whenever any or all are true:
- When you need a rich, interactive user experience;
- When you need an extensible framework to support future developments by yourselves or third parties;
- When you want multi-platform capability, but native look and feel and capabilities;
- When your program must be remotely supportable and updateable;
- When your program adopts a 'sovereign posture';
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The Eclipse community site offers a list of open source and commercial uses of RCP. This list's contributors includes JPMorgan, NASA and Incremental Ltd.
There is also a collection of case studies (including our own) submitted by successful users of RCP explaining why and how they use the technology.
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What are the downsides of Eclipse RCP?
A steep learning curve, rapidly evolving technologies, and no canonical approach to integrating your domain model.
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What is Incremental's experience of RCP?
Positive and long!
Incremental has been using RCP for as long as it has existed. Indeed we
were among the community of early adopters using Eclipse technology for
generic applications before the actual release of RCP with Eclipse 3.0
in 2004.
We offer a product to the marine sector called Incremental Epic. This is an RCP application which has been under continuous development for over three years. Its customer proposition is reliant on the capabilities of the RCP platform (for more on this see our case study).
Though our services, we have experience of Eclipse RCP in several different industries and environments.
Our training courses have been well received by blue-chip clients including JP Morgan, BT, Symbian and HM's Government - please contact us for more.
We are active members of the Eclipse community, contributing bug fixes and articles, and speaking at conferences. We are very involved in Eclipse-based open-source initiatives, in particular leading the JFaceFactories open source project.
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What services does Incremental offer?
Our overall aim is to transfer our knowledge and experience of Eclipse RCP to our clients as quickly and productively as possible. We offer formal training, mentoring and consultancy services.
We deliver hands-on training courses that offer rapid learning of the concepts and technologies behind Eclispe RCP. You can choose whether to focus on Eclipse plug-in development or Eclipse RCP development. Furthermore our courses can be tailored to your specific needs.
Beyond the basics, our preferred method of technology transfer is on-site mentoring, developing your staff's skills as they work on real-world projects. Such mentoring can be combined with conventional consulting and development services.
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Why choose Incremental's training courses?
We offer small class sizes and content tailored to your needs. All our course leaders are practicing RCP developers. We believe in a communal exploration of the technologies rather than a static run-through of course curricula.
We seek to constantly improve our courses based on feedback and have never achieved less than an 80% rating from our delegates.
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How will an Incremental training course benefit me?
An overview of the technologies of your choice; the options available, and how to choose which to use. An in-depth look at areas of particular importance. War stories of real-life RCP development!
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