How to add toolbar into e4 view

[jdneo]

Hi team,

I'm working on a custom view based on e4, below is my xmi file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ASCII"?>
<fragment:ModelFragments xmi:version="2.0" xmlns:xmi="http://www.omg.org/XMI" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:basic="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/application/descriptor/basic" xmlns:fragment="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/fragment" xmlns:menu="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/application/ui/menu" xmi:id="_BxaXACerEeWxCPrV0pAZQQ">
  <fragments xsi:type="fragment:StringModelFragment" xmi:id="_EI7oACerEeWxCPrV0pAZQQ" featurename="descriptors" parentElementId="xpath:/">
    <elements xsi:type="basic:PartDescriptor" xmi:id="_KMklcCerEeWxCPrV0pAZQQ" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.JobsView" label="GitHub Coding Agent Jobs" iconURI="platform:/plugin/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/icons/bg_agents.png" tooltip="GitHub Coding Agent Jobs" category="GitHub Copilot" closeable="true" contributionURI="bundleclass://com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.views.JobsView">
      <tags>View</tags>
      <tags>categoryTag:GitHub Copilot</tags>
      <toolbar xmi:id="_FqyBILocEfCpH9sdbdo-9w" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.toolbar">
        <children xsi:type="menu:DirectToolItem" xmi:id="_GwiS0LodEfCpH9sdbdo-9w" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.refresh" label="Refresh" iconURI="platform:/plugin/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/icons/refresh.png" tooltip="Refresh agent jobs" contributionURI="bundleclass://com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handlers.RefreshHandler"/>
      </toolbar>
    </elements>
  </fragments>
</fragment:ModelFragments>

But When I open my view, there is no icon in the toolbar area.

Is there anything I missed?

[jdneo]

The solution is to remove the workbench.xmi under <your_workspace>/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.e4.workbench/.

[laeubi]

Actually this should not be needed, how did you defined your fragment model?

[jdneo]

@laeubi Here it is

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ASCII"?>
<fragment:ModelFragments xmi:version="2.0" xmlns:xmi="http://www.omg.org/XMI" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:basic="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/application/descriptor/basic" xmlns:commands="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/application/commands" xmlns:fragment="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/fragment" xmlns:menu="http://www.eclipse.org/ui/2010/UIModel/application/ui/menu" xmi:id="_JobsViewFragment">
  <fragments xsi:type="fragment:StringModelFragment" xmi:id="_JobsViewStringFragment" featurename="descriptors" parentElementId="xpath:/">
    <elements xsi:type="basic:PartDescriptor" xmi:id="_JobsViewPartDescriptor" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.JobsView" label="%view.jobsView.label" iconURI="platform:/plugin/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/icons/bg_agents.png" tooltip="%view.jobsView.tooltip" category="%view.jobsView.category" closeable="true" contributionURI="bundleclass://com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.views.JobsView">
      <tags>View</tags>
      <tags>categoryTag:GitHub Copilot</tags>
      <toolbar xmi:id="_Fq2lUMOuEfCDwvP27WZquw" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.toolbar.0">
        <children xsi:type="menu:HandledToolItem" xmi:id="_RefreshAgentJobsToolItem" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handledtoolitem.refreshagentjobs" label="%command.refreshAgentJobs.name" iconURI="platform:/plugin/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/icons/refresh.png" tooltip="%command.refreshAgentJobs.tooltip" command="_RefreshAgentJobsCommand"/>
        <children xsi:type="menu:HandledToolItem" xmi:id="_CollapseAllToolItem" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handledtoolitem.collapseall" label="%command.collapseAll.name" iconURI="platform:/plugin/org.eclipse.ui/icons/full/elcl16/collapseall.png" tooltip="%command.collapseAll.tooltip" command="_CollapseAllCommand"/>
        <children xsi:type="menu:HandledToolItem" xmi:id="_ExpandAllToolItem" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handledtoolitem.expandall" label="%command.expandAll.name" iconURI="platform:/plugin/org.eclipse.ui/icons/full/elcl16/expandall.png" tooltip="%command.expandAll.tooltip" command="_ExpandAllCommand"/>
      </toolbar>
    </elements>
  </fragments>
  <fragments xsi:type="fragment:StringModelFragment" xmi:id="_CommandsFragment" featurename="commands" parentElementId="xpath:/">
    <elements xsi:type="commands:Command" xmi:id="_RefreshAgentJobsCommand" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.command.refreshagentjobs" commandName="%command.refreshAgentJobs.name"/>
    <elements xsi:type="commands:Command" xmi:id="_CollapseAllCommand" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.command.collapseall" commandName="%command.collapseAll.name"/>
    <elements xsi:type="commands:Command" xmi:id="_ExpandAllCommand" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.command.expandall" commandName="%command.expandAll.name"/>
  </fragments>
  <fragments xsi:type="fragment:StringModelFragment" xmi:id="_HandlersFragment" featurename="handlers" parentElementId="xpath:/">
    <elements xsi:type="commands:Handler" xmi:id="_RefreshAgentJobsHandler" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handler.refreshagentjobs" contributionURI="bundleclass://com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handlers.RefreshAgentJobsHandler" command="_RefreshAgentJobsCommand"/>
    <elements xsi:type="commands:Handler" xmi:id="_CollapseAllHandler" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handler.collapseall" contributionURI="bundleclass://com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handlers.CollapseAllHandler" command="_CollapseAllCommand"/>
    <elements xsi:type="commands:Handler" xmi:id="_ExpandAllHandler" elementId="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handler.expandall" contributionURI="bundleclass://com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs/com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.jobs.handlers.ExpandAllHandler" command="_ExpandAllCommand"/>
  </fragments>
</fragment:ModelFragments>

[laeubi]

@jdneo I more mean in the plugin.xml as there is an option to apply the fragment always or only initially:

for me it looks like your fragment is only applied initially or nonexists

[jdneo]

Thank you, you are correct, it's "notexists".

[vogella]

Even with always, the state of the UI widgets will be persisted in workbench.xmi. So if you add changes and want to make them visible you would need to close and reopen the view or delete the persisted state of the workbench.

[jdneo]

Oh really? I thought it can solve the issue since the document says: always: each time the application started potentially replacing existing model elements and loosing information stored.

Sounds like a bug of platform ui?

[vogella]

Sounds like a bug of platform ui?

A long standing issue. The state of the workbench (based on what the user did) is saved during shutdown (and time based). If the fragment is present, its current state will also be persisted and restored. The system cannot distinct between user changes and changes based on the contribution. The typical solution my client use for this is to write a model add-on which "does the right thing if needed". For example, I wrote a long time ago the ModelCleanupAddon which asynchronously searches for model contributions which are no longer present and removes them. For menu and toolbar contributions to the applicatoin you can use persistState=false as persistedState to indicate that the menu and toolbar should not be persisted. Something you cannot use for views as the user might move them around, duplicate or close them, etc.

So I would agree that we have a bug but so far we also do not have a good idea how to implement this correctly.

[jdneo]

Can reset perspective be used as a workaround for such case?

[vogella]

We could have to extend it to support model cleanup.

[jdneo]

Maybe consider to support that? Which could be another way of the functionality mentioned in eclipse-copilot/eclipse-copilot#31 (comment).