Generics support for JFace viewers and migration of Eclipse UI viewers

by Jeanderson Candido for The Eclipse Foundation

The JFace viewer framework is useful for tools that interact with the User interface. Although it is a widely used API, JFace viewers do not support Java 1.6 features. Therefore, developers have to adapt their work to supply the absence of Generics using explicit casts and type checking. During this process, time is wasted implementing repetitive solutions, resulting in a verbose code. Extending the current API to support Generics could be useful to improve the quality of client programs.