Installing Zest 2 from GEF4

Question

I need to move to Zest 2 from GEF4. I got Zest2 from the Eclipse market place. However when I run a program that utilizes it, I get the following error

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.eclipse.gef4.geometry.planar.Rectangle
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
    ... 8 more

I'm assuming this means that I need the GEF4 Geometry pack as well so I try to download that from gef4 - http://download.eclipse.org/tools/gef/gef4/updates/integration However that isn't allowed since it says I am missing package javafx.collections.

Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.
  Software being installed: GEF4 Geometry JavaFX Conversion 0.1.0.201407251903 (org.eclipse.gef4.geometry.convert.fx.feature.group 0.1.0.201407251903)
  Missing requirement: GEF4 Geometry JavaFX Conversions 0.1.0.201407251903 (org.eclipse.gef4.geometry.convert.fx 0.1.0.201407251903) requires 'package javafx.collections [2.0.0,3.0.0)' but it could not be found
  Cannot satisfy dependency:
    From: GEF4 Geometry JavaFX Conversion 0.1.0.201407251903 (org.eclipse.gef4.geometry.convert.fx.feature.group 0.1.0.201407251903)
    To: org.eclipse.gef4.geometry.convert.fx [0.1.0.201407251903]

Can someone please advise me on how I can fix this? Thanks.

Answer 1

I believe the GEF4 zest plugins are broken at the moment. The framework is still under development and things got broken/changed from time to time.

I also received the JAVAFX issue during update about 2 weeks ago. Today I updated again and the issue is gone. However, when I run some application based on recent zest 2 code, I am getting the same class not found error for classes in org.eclipse.gef4.geometry.planar package.

It seems many packages in geometry plugin are marked as "export only to ..." option and the allowed downstream plugin list is empty.

Answer 2

The problem you have reported is related to missing JavaFX dependencies. These are contributed by e(fx)clipse, so this has to be included in your target. You can refer to the GEF contributor guide at http://wiki.eclipse.org/GEF/Contributor_Guide to get guidance on how to set up your workspace (and target) to work with GEF4. The guide also describes our policy with respect to limited exposing of (provisional API) packages.

In general, let me add that we are currently rewriting Zest2 based on GEF4 MVC.FX, using JavaFX for visualization. That is, the org.eclipse.gef4.zest.core, org.eclipse.gef4.zest.jface, and org.eclipse .gef4.zest.ui bundles are deprecated and will be removed in the Mars timeframe. You can find details here: https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=372365.