How to open a view at a specific position

[jdneo]

Apologize if this is not the right place to ask question.

I'm developing a plugin that has a customized view. And I hope when the view is opened, it can be located at the right of the IDE. (currently it appears at bottom).

I found something like this:

<extension
	point="org.eclipse.ui.perspectiveExtensions">
	<perspectiveExtension
		targetID="*">
		<view
			id="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.chat.ChatView"
			minimized="false"
			relationship="right"
			relative="?"
		>
		</view>
	</perspectiveExtension>
</extension>

But have no idea what to fill in the relative field. Could you please advise?

Thank you for your assistance.

[mickaelistria]

relative would be the id of another view in the perspective. You won't be able to find a generic "relative" that applies too all perspectives.
For what you're trying to achieve, I think it could be simpler to let your plugin get the IPartService and add some IPartListener on startup to react to the view being opened.

[jdneo]

@mickaelistria Thank you for the quick response!

For what you're trying to achieve, I think it could be simpler to let your plugin get the IPartService and add some IPartListener on startup to react to the view being opened.

A little bit lost for this. Would you mind give more details?

[laeubi]

I think here are several ways. So you should maybe describe what means

it can be located at the right of the IDE. (currently it appears at bottom)

because "right" and "bottom" depend on the current perspective, in general you likely talk about part stacks (!) where you want to place your view ...

[jdneo]

Thank you. May I ask is there any document or example I can refer to?

[mickaelistria]

I don't know directly which code should be used to achieve that (maybe it's e4 code as @laeubi says, maybe not...) but I'd suggest that you identify the bit of code that is responsible for drag-and-drop of views. It is capable of moving a view to a new right column in the IDE, so this code would be a good one to mimic for your case.

[merks]

Did the extension point really not work? That's the easiest way.

Mylyn uses that and that appears to work

[yanshudan]

We tried to open org.eclipse.mylyn.tasks.ui.views.tasks but it's opened on the right bottom.

I have to click perspectives->reset to make it positioned as it's declared in plugin.xml(top of ContentOutline). What we need is positioning the view at the right on view opened, instead of requiring additional user interaction to achieve that.

And I guess it can only be achieved by using some code as @mickaelistria mentioned. Do we have any hints on how to get that code?

[merks]

Note that those registrations specific to each and every perspective... I think you can specify * but there is no guarantee that the relative view is in the perspective.

[hithisispolarbear]

Thank you everyone!
Your suggestions are really helpful. Based on them, here's our final config below.
Our purpose is showing the chat view vertically after the first installation for a better user experience on chatting with copilot.
So, we decide to put it next to the org.eclipse.ui.editorss on the right for all perspectives.

	<!-- Position Chat View on the right side -->
	<extension
		point="org.eclipse.ui.perspectiveExtensions">
		<perspectiveExtension
			targetID="*">
			<view
				id="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.chat.ChatView"
				minimized="false"
				relationship="right"
				relative="org.eclipse.ui.editorss"
				ratio="0.75">
			</view>
		</perspectiveExtension>
	</extension>

Here are two examples for standard default perspectives.
Resource perspective

Java perspective

[iloveeclipse]

@jdneo : your screenshots aren't accessible.

Would that mean, the Chat view will be opened in another stack as Outline view? It would be distracting IMO, because it would take too much space.

Another possibility would be to put Chat view in the same stack as Outline view (which is what I'm doing if using Copilot)

   <extension point="org.eclipse.ui.perspectiveExtensions">
      <perspectiveExtension targetID="*">
         <view
               id="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.chat.ChatView"
               relative="org.eclipse.ui.views.ContentOutline"
               visible="false"
               relationship="stack">
         </view>
      </perspectiveExtension>
   </extension>

[jdneo]

@iloveeclipse

Thank you for this proposal, for sure stack with the outline view will also be better than displaying at bottom. The only regret is that from certain perspectives, the height is still a bit low.

Another question:

for the outline stack proposal, I tried to open it in a perspective which does not display the outline view by default, for example, debug view, the chat view will display at the right side:

I guess the reason is that the outline view will also be displayed there when it's opened in debug view, right?

I tried to find the place where configures the place outline view will be displayed, to help me better understand this solution, but not find an answer. Do you have any insight?

[iloveeclipse]

In the debug perspective the outline view position is defined in code. If perspective definition doesn't have outline view, it will be shown in the bottom part stack. Check Git perspective.

[merks]

It's always bothered me that the task list isn't in the same stack as the outline because it makes the outline too small.

[hithisispolarbear]

Updated the image links of my screenshots above.
(I guess the inaccessibility is because I take the original links from my pull request directly. Now I updated the image links above.)

[jdneo]

@hithisispolarbear I synced with our UX and they recommend the outline view proposal as well. Please update the configuration to make chat view always stack with outline view. See: #2814 (reply in thread)

[hithisispolarbear]

Hi folks,
We'd like to give a fallback option for maybe many other perspectives, so the ChatView won't appears at some unexpected positions.
(When it stacks with Outline, it will appear at left in Resource perspective and bottom in Git perspective.)
Generally, we'd like it to appear at the right vertically. But as shown below, "*" cannot be a fallback logic, it will overwrite JavaPerspective.
We are not sure if this is by design. Or there's any other fallback logic we don't know?

    <!-- Chat View Position -->
    <extension point="org.eclipse.ui.perspectiveExtensions">
  	<!-- For JavaPerspective, we stack ChatView with ContentOutline -->
      	<perspectiveExtension targetID="org.eclipse.jdt.ui.JavaPerspective">
         	<view
                         id="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.chat.ChatView"
                         relative="org.eclipse.ui.views.ContentOutline"
                         visible="false"
                         relationship="stack">
         	</view>
      	</perspectiveExtension>
      	<!-- For all other perspectives, we place ChatView on the right side -->
      	<perspectiveExtension targetID="*">
         	<view
		          id="com.microsoft.copilot.eclipse.ui.chat.ChatView"
		          minimized="false"
		          relationship="right"
		          relative="org.eclipse.ui.editorss"
		          ratio="0.75">
         	</view>
  	 </perspectiveExtension>
   </extension>

[jdneo]

In short:

Right now perspectiveExtension targetID="*" will win over the more specific rule perspectiveExtension targetID="org.eclipse.jdt.ui.JavaPerspective"

Is it by design?

[iloveeclipse]

Is it by design?

You may try to change definition order in the XML, but I would recommend not to use "extra" perspectives and stick with "Outline or default at the bottom". There are lot of "default" non-Java perspectives that have Outline, it would not make sense to "break" them. The perspectives that don't have outline (and no placeholder for outline) usually are not editing perspectives, so there is no reason to add extra handling for them - users can always move views around.

So I would target "75%" with the Outline and assume that the rest can survive with the Copilot at the bottom, not other way around.

[jdneo]

The perspectives that don't have outline (and no placeholder for outline) usually are not editing perspectives

It's true, but the outline view position may not be at right always, i.e.

Our original idea is that explicitly configure all well-known perspective case by case, and use * as a fallback.

[jdneo]

You may try to change definition order in the XML

@hithisispolarbear could you please confirm that if this works or not?

[hithisispolarbear]

You may try to change definition order in the XML
@ hithisispolarbear could you please confirm that if this works or not?

It didn't work.
I changed the order like below. targetID="*" still wins.
(I build and install it locally on the current IDE window, so we see the code and ChatView position in the same screenshot.)