Eclipse RCP and Eclipse Plugin

Question

I'm trying to learn Eclipse RCP and read some articles online. I'm confused that Eclipse RCP tutorials talk about Eclipse plugins development. I'm not being able to understand Eclipse RCP.

What is the relationship between Eclipse RCP and Eclipse Plugins?

I want to develop application with Eclipse RCP as UI framework (it is, isn't it?). What does that have to do with Eclipse Plugin development?

Answer 1

What is the relationship between Eclipse RCP and Eclipse Plugins?

They both use Eclipse as the integrated development environment (IDE).

The Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) is a generic Java platform for running applications. It provides the basic blocks for building a rich client application GUI using the OSGi framework.

Eclipse RCP is an SWT base for building GUI applications.

Eclipse plug-ins extend the functionality of the Eclipse IDE.

Internally, Eclipse RCP and Eclipse plug-ins have some OSGi similarities.

Answer 2

Eclipse is an IDE that provides development features for java, C++ and so on.

Eclipse IDE is an Eclipse RCP application.

You may develop Eclipse plugins that will extend Eclipse IDE. You may develop Eclipse plugins that will be part of an Eclipse RCP application that is your own creation.