"Add Required Plug-ins" button in Eclipse RCP product configuration?

Question

I don't quite understand what plug-ins constitue the list Dependencies when I make a product configuration in Eclipse RCP and what does the button "Add Required Plug-ins" exactly do? Why the Dependencies list is not full from the very beginning and why I have to use that button?

Thank you.

Answer 1

When you develop your RCP application, you specify:

• not enough plugins (i.e. only the one you need to compile, but not their runtime dependencies)
• and/or too many plugins (i.e. you depends on some provided by eclipse, even though you do not use them all)

In order to launch your RCP application as a standalone application, the "Add Required Plug-ins" allows you to validate (i.e. select only the right amount of plugins you actually need) your runtime configuration.

alt text http://www.vogella.de/articles/RichClientPlatform/images/launchconfiguration30.gif

That helps to solve errors like:

• "One or more bundles are not resolved because the following root constraints are not resolved" or
• "java.lang.RuntimeException: No application id has been found."

Not; you can validate your plugins in order to check that launching configuration before actually launching it.

Answer 2

This is only part of the story. When you want to deploy your RCP application you need to somehow add these dependencies without a Launch Configuration. The easiest way of doing this is to do as @VonC suggests but instead of hitting Run go to the Common tab and share the run configuration by specifying a directory (it gives it a name automatically), apply and close the dialog. Create a new Feature Project, call it something like 'org.com.product.dependencies', press Next, select Initialise from Launch Configuration and choose the one you just shared. Then include this feature in your Product Configuration. Voila!