RAP 1.3 M7 - New and Noteworthy

Here is a list of SWT API that was implemented in M7:

• Device#getDPI()
• Device#getDepth()
• Display#beep()
• Image#getBackground()
• Image#setBackground()
• SWT#CURSOR_NO and SWT#CURSOR_APPSTARTING
• SWT#getVersion()
• Display#findDisplay()
• Display#getSyncThread()
• Display#getCursorControl()

It is now possible to contribute CSS code to existing themes using the extension point org.eclipse.rap.ui.themes. This way, plug-in developers can easily add CSS rules for their controls without the need to copy and extend an existing theme.

It is now possible to contribute ServiceHandlers via extensions using the extension point org.eclipse.rap.ui.serviceHandler. This way, plug-in developers can easily declare ServiceHandlers instead of registering them programmtically.

The theming was extended in serveral places

• The Shell has a new themeable element called Shell-DisplayOverlay. When a modal shell with is opened, there is a usually invisible element that is blocking all user-interactions with what is behind the shell. This "overlay" can now be themed to visualize this behaviour, using a semi-transparent background-color or image.
  For example:

   
    Shell-DisplayOverlay {
      background-image: none;
      background-color: #000000;
      opacity: 0.5;
    }
         

  
  
• We introduced the opacity-property on the following widgets:
  Label, CLabel, Composite, Menu, Menuitem, ToolBar, ToolItem, ToolTip and ProgressBar-Indicator
  
  This is an easy way to achieve semi-transparency. Be aware that there are currently two unresolved issues regarding its use in Internet Explorer: Bug 302713 and Bug 303603
  In some cases those can trigger minor graphical glitches.
• The Combo and CCombo widgets now have a styleable FocusIndicator like Button.
• The Text widget now supports backgroundGradient.
• Tables with alternating row colors, combined with vertical-only grid lines are a common design that was so far not supported by RAP. With the introduction of the vertical and horizontal states for the Table-GridLine-element, this is now possible:

    Table-GridLine {
      color: #d0d0d0;
    }
  
    Table-GridLine:horizontal {
      color: transparent;
    }
         

  
  
• We now support animations as part of the theming. They allow for simple transition-effects to create a more organic user-experience. Currently only a few widgets (Button, ToolItem, ToolTip, Shell-DisplayOverlay, Menu) and effects are available, but you can expect more in the future. The API is a subset of the CSS3 Working Draft for animations. To define an animation you need to set three values (effect, duration, and timing function) and you can define several per widget.
  For example, to create an animated hover-effect for buttons, the syntax could look like this:

    Button : {
      animation: hoverIn 200ms linear, hoverOut 500ms ease-out;
    }
         

A subset of the graphics context (GC) from SWT is now available in RAP. It can be used for basic drawing on the the Canvas widget:

  Canvas canvas = new Canvas( parent, SWT.NONE );
  canvas.addPaintListener( new PaintListener() {
    public void paintControl( PaintEvent event ) {
      Rectangle rect = canvas.getClientArea();
      event.gc.drawOval( 0, 0, rect.width - 1, rect.height - 1 );
    }
  } );
       

The graphics are rendered on HTML5 Canvas on the client, for Internet Explorer, a VML-based (vector-graphics) emulation is used. The performance on IE may degrade drastically when the number of shapes drawn exceeds a limit of about 500.
To see the graphics context in action, try out the Canvas page in the RAP Examples.

RAP now contains an implementation of the SWT FontDialog.