Changes in JFace for Eclipse 3.3 means work for us

Eclipse 3.3 is coming. And it adds a lot of new stuff everywhere. It isn't just Europa with its many new tools and technologies, but also the basic platform. Of those changes I have seen until now, the most important from an RCP point-of-view is in JFace:

org.eclipse.ui.menus extension point

This really will help cleaning up the extension point mess from Eclipse 3.2, although the use of commands, handlers and the corresponding declarations will take some getting used to. There are stil some things that cannot be fully declared so the ActionBarAdvisor has not completely disappeared.

org.eclipse.jface.viewers.ColumnLabelProvider basic label provider

This label provider together with org.eclipse.jface.viewers.TableViewerColumn enable column-specific label providers and editing support. It is going to be nice to be able to create complete repositories of label providers that can be used everywhere.

org.eclipse.jface.window.ToolTip tool tip support

Creating tool tips with an arbitrary content is also very nice in many RCP applications where a rich feed back can be a real time saver for the user.

org.eclipse.jface.viewers.OwnerDrawLabelProvider

This new cell label provider (in the same family as ColumnLabelProvider) allows you to draw a cell explicitly. Unfortunately it cannot be used to add complete SWT Controls in cells...

These changes to the training materials in order to be able to show all the new stuff. Just the above changes, takes 3-4 days of changes (including labs).

So I better get started...