ManualCustomizingAndExtending

Customizing and extending RCPForms

If you are using rcpforms in a bigger company or in a project involving lot of gui forms,
you might want to create your own framework by customizing and extending rcpforms
and packaging it in your own feature.

Usually your project might have different requirements on the look and feel than the ones provided out of the box by rcpforms.
Anyway, it is recommended to follow the default as close as possible, to make sure different plugins contained in an Eclipse
Workbench have a common look and feel.

If you have different requirements for your project, make sure that there is a central place where these modifications and customizations
are maintained, to avoid each single developer to recreate these modifications.

Usually you would want to create your own RCPFormToolkit subclass and your own GridBuilder subclass to modify standard look like label and text field alignment,
fonts etc..

This chapter explains the hooks rcpforms provides.

Custom reusable ModelValidators explains how to use your own validators.

Using your own default converters or replacing the defaults from rcpforms explains how to modify conversion from your model property to a widget and back.

Creating custom Widgets, compounds and composites explains how new widgets or standard widget arrangements can be added to rcpforms.

Customize default layout, use different layouts than GridLayout explains how to create your own builder for a different layout or modify the standard layout behavior of GridBuilder.

Customize State Rendering, define custom states for widgets explains how widget states like required, disabled, error markers can be rendered differently or new states can be added.

Use your own Toolkit to create widgets explains how to replace the widget factory (called toolkit) by your own implementation.

Use your own model instead of java beans explains how to write a model adapter to use rcpforms with your model.

Customize handling of Null Values and Enumeration values explains how null value and enum combo and enum radio group presentation can be changed.

Advanced Table Configuration shows how to use advanced table features and customize the table to display more complex values.