Writing an Eclipse Plug-in (Part 6): Adding an Icon To New Project Types

So there you are: it’s the middle of the night and you suddenly wake up bathed in sweat with the question that has been haunting you for ages: how does a newly defined Eclipse project type get an associated image?

Adding an Icon to Newly Created Custom Projects

It has to do with natures. Remember how in Part 4 we added a custom nature to our custom project? Well, let’s put that custom nature to some use:

1. Open customplugin plugin.xml –> Extensions. Click on org.eclipse.core.resources.natures. Note that its ID is customplugin.projectNature.
2. From the Extensions tab click Add. Type proj in the Extensions window. The org.eclipse.ui.ide.projectNatureImages extension should be the only item left. Select it and click Finish.
3. Right click on org.eclipse.ui.ide.projectNatureImages –> New –> image.
4. Select customplugin.image1 (image), or whatever the name is of the new extension element, and enter the following in the fields to the right:
• id: customplugin.natureImage
• natureId: customplugin.projectNature
• icon: icons/project-folder.png

The id is the name of this extension element. The natureId is the id of the nature created previously and the icon image is the project folder image we used with the New Project Wizard (feel free to use an image of your own choosing or making). I should probably have selected something a little less heavy handed as typically the icon is a smaller image that Eclipse overlays in the upper right hand corner of the folder icon. We’ll fix it eventually…maybe.

Go ahead. Run the runtime workbench and create a custom project. Open the Navigator view to take an unadulterated view of the project with its new shiny icon.

It’s okay. You can get some sleep now. The cat is alive.