Creating an About Dialog for your Eclipse RCP Application

Displaying an About box in your Eclipse RCP Application/Product is actually very simple. However as is typical of a framework ("don't call us, we'll call you" principle), there are conventions you must follow.

Before you do this, you must already create an Eclipse RCP Application class that implements IApplication and register it as an Eclipse extension in your plugin.xml.

Adding the Help > About Menu Item

First, edit your ApplicationActionBarAdvisor class (which extends org.eclipse.ui.application.ActionBarAdvisor base class), as follows:

    protected void makeActions(IWorkbenchWindow window) {
        aboutAction = ActionFactory.ABOUT.create(window);
        register(aboutAction);
    }

That will register the About action. You will also need to add the menu action itself to the menu bar:

    protected void fillMenuBar(IMenuManager menuBar) {
        MenuManager helpMenu = new MenuManager("&Help", IWorkbenchActionConstants.M_HELP);
       
        menuBar.add(helpMenu);
        helpMenu.add(aboutAction);
    }

Launch your Eclipse RCP application and you can display the About dialog.

Customizing the About Dialog Box

To customize the About dialog box's contents, first you must create an Eclipse RCP Product Configuration.
Click File > New > Product Configuration and define your product.

This should also add your product to extension point 'org.eclipse.core.runtime.products'.

Edit your project's Launch Configuration to use the your Product Configuration instead of Eclipse Application. Verify that it works well.

Now you can customize the About box contents by editing your Product Configuration (.product file), go to Branding tab and About Dialog section. Specify the About Image and About Text there.

To specify the image, import an image resource (PNG, GIF, JPG) to your plugin project (e.g. inside an /icons folder). Important: Your image will need to be included inside your resulting plugin binary. Edit your plugin's manifest, go to Build tab, and make sure your images/icons are included (checked) for the binary build and source build.

After editing your Product Configuration, you must synchronize it with the plugin manifest. Go to the Product's Overview tab and click Synchronize (under Testing).

That action will update several properties in the org.eclipse.core.runtime.products extension, for example:

   <extension
         id="abispulsa_rcp"
         point="org.eclipse.core.runtime.products">
      <product
            application="com.abispulsa.bisnis.rcp.application"
            description="Layanan bagi korporasi untuk dapat dengan mudah mengisi pulsa."
            name="AbisPulsa Bisnis RCP">
         <property
               name="appName"
               value="AbisPulsa Bisnis RCP">
         </property>
         <property
               name="aboutText"
               value="AbisPulsa Bisnis merupakan layanan bagi korporasi untuk dapat dengan mudah mengisi pulsa.">
         </property>
         <property
               name="aboutImage"
               value="icons/AbisPulsa_icon_75x75.png">
         </property>
      </product>
   </extension>

For your information: Other properties you can use include:

• windowImages
• aboutImage
• aboutText
• appName
• welcomePage
• preferenceCustomization

References:

1. http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/guide/product_def_extpt.htm
2. http://help.eclipse.org/helios/index.jsp?topic=/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/reference/extension-points/org_eclipse_core_runtime_products.html