Tutorial

JFace Data Binding connects your domain model and the user interface. This article covers Data Binding together with Eclipse EMF. For an introduction to JFace Data Binding please see JFace Data Binding Tutorial . For an introduction to Eclipse EMF please see Eclipse EMF Tutorial.

One of the cool features in JFace Data Binding is that you have access to nestled properties.

The remainder of this tutorial assume that you are familiar with the base concepts of EMF and JFace Data binding and will focus on the additional information how to use both frameworks together.

Create an RCP project "de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt" based on the "RCP application with a view". Add "org.eclipse.emf.ecore" as a plugin dependency.

Create an EMF model "person.ecore". Create the class "Phone" with the property "number". Create also the class "Person" which should have the following properties:

The result should look similar to the following.

Change the class View to the following. The coding demonstrates how you can use JFace Data Binding to access model properties. It also demonstrates how to access nestled properties to the phone class with is part of person.

			
package de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt;

import org.eclipse.core.databinding.DataBindingContext;
import org.eclipse.emf.databinding.EMFProperties;
import org.eclipse.emf.databinding.FeaturePath;
import org.eclipse.jface.databinding.swt.WidgetProperties;
import org.eclipse.swt.SWT;
import org.eclipse.swt.events.MouseAdapter;
import org.eclipse.swt.events.MouseEvent;
import org.eclipse.swt.layout.GridData;
import org.eclipse.swt.layout.GridLayout;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Button;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Composite;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Layout;
import org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Text;
import org.eclipse.ui.part.ViewPart;

import de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt.model.ModelFactory;
import de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt.model.ModelPackage;
import de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt.model.Person;
import de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt.model.Phone;

public class View extends ViewPart {
	public static final String ID = "de.vogella.databinding.emf.swt.view";

	@Override
	public void createPartControl(Composite parent) {

		// Lets put thing to order
		Layout layout = new GridLayout(2, false);
		parent.setLayout(layout);

		// Initialize the model
		ModelPackage.eINSTANCE.eClass();
		// Retrieve the default factory singleton
		ModelFactory factory = ModelFactory.eINSTANCE;

		final Person person = factory.createPerson();
		person.setFirstName("Lars");
		person.setLastName("Vogel");
		person.setGender("m");
		Phone phone = factory.createPhone();
		phone.setNumber("0123456789");
		person.setPhone(phone);
		// New text element
		Text firstName = new Text(parent, SWT.NONE);
		DataBindingContext bindingContext = new DataBindingContext();
		GridData gridData = new GridData();
		gridData.horizontalAlignment = GridData.FILL;
		gridData.horizontalSpan = 2;
		firstName.setLayoutData(gridData);
		Text phoneNumber = new Text(parent, SWT.NONE);
		gridData = new GridData();
		gridData.horizontalAlignment = GridData.FILL;
		gridData.horizontalSpan = 2;
		phoneNumber.setLayoutData(gridData);

		bindingContext.bindValue(
				WidgetProperties.text(SWT.Modify).observe(firstName),
				EMFProperties.value(ModelPackage.Literals.PERSON__FIRST_NAME)
						.observe(person));

		FeaturePath feature = FeaturePath.fromList(
				ModelPackage.Literals.PERSON__PHONE,
				ModelPackage.Literals.PHONE__NUMBER);
		bindingContext.bindValue(
				WidgetProperties.text(SWT.Modify).observe(phoneNumber),
				EMFProperties.value(feature).observe(person));
		Button button1 = new Button(parent, SWT.PUSH);
		button1.setText("Write model");
		button1.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
			@Override
			public void mouseDown(MouseEvent e) {
				System.out.println(person.getFirstName());
				System.out.println(person.getPhone().getNumber());
			}
		});

		Button button2 = new Button(parent, SWT.PUSH);
		button2.setText("Change model");
		button2.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
			@Override
			public void mouseDown(MouseEvent e) {
				person.setFirstName("Lars2");
				String reversedNumber = new StringBuffer(person.getPhone()
						.getNumber()).reverse().toString();
				person.getPhone().setNumber(reversedNumber);
			}
		});
	}

	public void setFocus() {
	}
}
		

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