Handly 0.3 : Outline framework and quick outline support

by Vladimir Piskarev

A major new feature of the upcoming 0.3 release of Handly is an outline framework (org.eclipse.handly.ui.outline package). Only a part of it depends on the handle-based model API provided by Handly; much of the code is fairly generic and can be reused in other contexts, thanks to a multi-layered design. Handly 0.3 also includes quick outline support (org.eclipse.handly.ui.quickoutline package), which nicely complements the outline framework. A detailed description of both facilities is beyond the scope of this note, but the Basic Example (org.eclipse.handly.examples.basic.ui) in Handly SDK now uses the outline framework and offers quick outline in the Foo editor; it might be a good place to start. The API is fairly well documented (in Javadocs) and is expected to be quite easy to use.

As a teaser, compare the from-scratch previous implementation of the outline page in the Basic Example with the corresponding new implementation that uses the outline framework. The new implementation is both richer in ability and less in size. And you can easily do a lot more with it: this more advanced implementation provides problem marker decoration and a user-toggleable filter with just a few additional lines of code.

The initial API should be considered provisional. I would like to invite potential adopters to take a look and leave a feedback; as always, it would be much easier to fix any discovered deficiences early on. Feedback can be directed to the project’s forum or right to the developer mailing list (the list requires subscription).