Thanks, EclipseCon '09

This was my first year at EclipseCon. It was great to put names to faces and mingle with the community.

Here are some things that I learned, in no particular order.

• Choose Import-Package over Require-Bundle (I feel like I am a bit late to the game on that one, but appreciate being let in on the secret)
  
• Someone is using RCP to monitor nuclear power plants in France.
  
• Migrating a traditional enterprise application to OSGi is a hard problem.
  
• I am running out of excuses not to use modeling tools.
  
• I should scrap my homegrown explorer and use Common Navigator.
  
• e4 is coming here. Start using it.
  

Aside from the technical learning, I felt the pulse of the community. And the message is this: contribute. Submit patches. Write bug reports. Participate in newsgroup discussions. Help wanted. I think this is a great message and frankly I'm overwhelmed by the number of areas that I want to contribute to. I think I need to submit a proposal to the wife to get more free time...

I liked the session voting. I wonder how we could make it paperless? Maybe touch your RFID badge to a +1/0/-1 monitor or something..

I hope I am able to come again next year.

What did you take away this year (aside from a fish)?

Keyboard shortcuts and accessibility in GEF

Here is a handy reference list of keyboard usage with a GraphicalViewer. Zoom in and zoom out actions must be implemented for those key bindings to work. For panning support, use a PanningSelectionTool.

Navigate left	Right arrow
Navigate right	Right arrow
Navigate down	Down arrow
Navigate up	Up arrow
Navigate into a container	Alt+Down arrow with the container selected
Navigate out of a container	Alt+Up arrow
Cycle through selection handles	Press the period key with a part selected
Move a component	Cycle once to the Move handle using the period key Use navigation keys to move Press Enter to accept new location Press Escape to cancel the move
Resize a component	Cycle to desired resize handle using the period key Use navigation keys to resize Press Enter to accept new size Press Escape to cancel the resize
Select multiple	Hold down Ctrl Use navigation keys to navigate to additional components Press Space to select additional components
Select in sequence	Hold down Shift, use navigation keys to select additional components
Zoom In	Ctrl +
Zoom Out	Ctrl -
Select multiple w/ mouse	Hold down Ctrl and use the mouse to select components
Pan when zoomed in	Hold down Spacebar and drag the mouse

Favorites from 3.5M6

There are some goodies in 3.5M6. Here are a few of my favorites.

• DataBinding support for the SWT DateTime widget. No doubt this will be useful. [169876]
• DataBinding MultiValidator: Add support for dependencies other than those expressed by IObservables. We have run into this roadblock a few times and its good to see it has been lifted. [235859]
• Copy/paste support for installed software list. Helpful for reporting issues. [227220]
• Enable CTRL-mouse navigation for implementing classes. You know when Ctrl-Click takes you to the interface instead of the implementation? Now its smart. This is awesome. [44277]
• New tracing API. Recently noticed we need debug level output in our product and this will be useful in implementing such a log. [258705]
  

EclipseCon 2009 in 1 week!