How to get JavaDoc for SWT and JFace in Eclipse?

Question

I'm a newbie to Eclipse and can't figure out how to get the JavaDocs for SWT and JFace to show up when I am editing.

How do I do this? Thanks!

Answer 1

If you use a "Plug-in Project" they are there by default. That project type is available in "Eclipse for RCP/Plug-in Developers" or "Eclipse Classic". If you have a different version, you should be able to set up such a project after installing the "Eclipse SDK" feature via the update manager (in 3.4 under Available Software -> The Eclipse Project Updates).

Answer 2

I assume you've dowloaded the jars yourself and referenced them in your project. If so, you can right click the jar in the project explorer (in the 'Referenced Libraries' node) and click 'Properties'. The window that appears you can define the location of the jar's JavaDoc and source, if you have those available.

You can also reach this by clicking Project > Properties > Java Build Path > Libraries and expanding the node for the jar to which you want to add javadoc/source.

Also worth mentioning that if you use Maven (http://maven.apache.org/) for building your project, it's dependency management system will take care of finding sources and javadocs for you. But that's a different topic entirly. Also might be worth looking at Ivy (http://ant.apache.org/ivy/) - similar dependency management system, but can be used without selling your soul to Maven, I'm told.

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You might also mean that you can't actually see the javadocs: Window > Show View > Other... > Java > JavaDoc. This view will show you the javadoc for whatever is currently in focus. Or just mouse over a method to see the javadoc in a popup.

Answer 3

Following the advice from ukulele, I was able to right click on the jar and set the javadoc location. In this case the location for the online javadoc was:

http://help.eclipse.org/stable/nftopic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.isv/reference/api/

Found from the SWT website:

http://www.eclipse.org/swt/docs.php

Thanks!

Answer 4

I often find the javadoc at eclipse.org to be really really slow to load. The javadocs may be included with your eclipse install and thus be available locally; try Help->Help Contents menu and search for 'SWT' to see if this is true on your installation.