JFaceSnippets
March 31, 2026 · View on GitHub
JFace-Snippets are small and easy understandable programming examples of how to use the JFace API. To browse the examples, navigate to the examples GIT repository.
Copy Paste
The header section of each snippet is a link to the plain source. You can copy the source and paste it directly on the source folder or package in an eclipse project. The package and the class will be created automatically.
Dialogs
Snippet012 - Dialog with Image Buttons
Demonstrates usage of Icons in Buttons of Dialogs
Drop these icons also in the same package
Snippet082 - Color Selector
The JFace ColorSelector widget is a convenient composition of button and color selector dialog. The button displays a swatch of the selected color.
Notification
Snippet001 - Simple Notification Popup with Strings
Demonstrates the simplest usage of the NotificationPopup builder API with forShell() and plain strings for title and content.
Snippet081 - Notification API
Demonstrates usage of the non-blocking notification API with forShell(), showing notifications triggered by button clicks.
Snippet083 - Notification Popup with Functions
Demonstrates the creation of notification popups using Function<Composite, Control> for custom title and content creation.
Snippet084 - Notification Popup with Custom Delay and Fade
Shows how to create notification popups with custom delay and fade-in effects using the delay() and fadeIn() builder methods.
Snippet085 - Notification Popup with User Interaction
Demonstrates a NotificationPopup with interactive content — a label and a button that opens a confirmation dialog when clicked.
Layout
Snippet013 - Grid Layout Factory
Demonstrates usage of the GridLayoutFactory to enhance readability
Snippet016 - Table Layout
Demonstrates (dynamic)layout support for TableColumns available as of JFace 3.3
Snippet027 - Tree Layout
Demonstrates (dynamic)layout support for TreeColumns available as of JFace 3.3
Viewers
Snippet001 - Table Viewer
Demonstrates a simply TableViewer with one column. It holds all important classes used for all Table-like JFace-Viewers (LabelProvider,IStructuredContentProvider)
Snippet002 - Tree Viewer
Demonstrates a simply TreeViewer with one column. It describes all important classes used for all Tree-like JFace-Viewers (LabelProvider,ITreeContentProvider)
Snippet003 - Table Label Provider
Demonstrates tables with more than one column and the usage of ITableLabelProvider
Snippet004 - Hide Selection
Demonstrates how the selection can be hidden when the user clicks in a table-row/column which doesn't hold any information. The standard behavior of SWT-Table is to leave the selection on the last column. This snippet removes the selection if the user clicks in an area not selectable
Snippet005 - Tree Custom Menu
Demonstrates how to create a different context menu depending on which item in the tree is currently selected this can also be used with a table of course
Snippet006 - Table Multi Line Cells
Demonstrates first use case for the OwnerDraw-Support added to JFace in 3.3 (available at SWT-Level since 3.2). This example uses the Viewers API in this special case the OwnerDrawLabelProvider to make items with more than one line of text.
Snippet007 - Full Selection
Demonstrates how you can use inline editing in tables with multiple columns that require to use SWT.FULL_SELECTION but hiding the selection from the user.
Snippet008 - Reveal Element
Demonstrates how you can scroll a TableViewer to the specific model element using TableViewer#reveal(Object)
Snippet009 - Cell Editors
Demonstrates minimal example when trying to add inline editing to tables to get familiar with the various classes needed (3.2 API)
Snippet010 - Owner Draw
Demonstrates usage of the OwnerDraw-Support feature provided by JFace in 3.3(available in SWT since 3.2). This example uses the Viewers API in this special case the OwnerDrawLabelProvider.
Snippet011 - Custom Tooltips
Demonstrates usage of custom tooltip support in 3.3 used to provide a tooltip for each cell in TableViewer
Snippet013 - Table Viewer No Mandatory Label Provider
Demonstrates usage of none mandatory LabelProviders in TableViewers to set colors and fonts with 3.2-API
Snippet014 - Tree Viewer No Mandatory Label Provider
Demonstrates usage of none mandatory LabelProviders in TreeViewers to set colors and font with 3.2-API
Snippet015 - Custom Tooltips For Tree
Demonstrates usage of custom tooltip support used to provide a tooltip for each cell in a TreeViewer
Snippet017 - Table Viewer Hide Show Columns
Demonstrates hiding and showing columns (animated)
Snippet019 - Table Viewer Add Remove Columns With Editing
Demonstrates adding/removing of columns in conjunction with the inline editing with JFace-API
Snippet024 - Table Viewer Explore
Demonstrates the base classes of 3.3 API
Snippet025 - Tab Editing
Demonstrates how one can use the 3.3 API to add tab-editing support to your viewer
Press Tab to jump from cell to cell
Snippet026 - Tree Viewer Tab Editing
Demonstrates all fancy things one can do with the 3.3 API (Tab-Editing, Keyboard-Navigation from Cell to Cell, Editor-Activation with the Keyboard)
Snippet027 - Combo Box Cell Editors
Demonstrates usage of the ComboBoxCellEditor in JFace-Viewers
Snippet029 - Virtual Table Viewer
Demonstrates usage of JFace-Viewers in "virtual" mode with an ordinary content provider (often the bottleneck is not the model but the UI). Using these Virtual viewers in conjunction with an ordinary content provider has the advantage that Sorting and Filtering are supported in 3.3.
Snippet030 - Virtual Lazy Table Viewer
Demonstrates usage of JFace-Viewer virtual mode with a lazy content provider
Snippet031 - Table Viewer Custom Tooltips Multi Selection
Demonstrates creation of tooltips for cells for pre 3.3 users
Snippet034 - Cell Editor Per Row
Demonstrates different CellEditor-Types in one COLUMN of JFace-Viewers
Snippet035 - Table Cursor Cell Highlighter
Demonstrates keyboard navigation in TableViewers using a TableCursor showing the flexibility of the cell navigation support
You also need these classes:
Snippet036 - Focus Border Cell Highlighter
Demonstrates keyboard navigation by highlighting the currently selected cell with a focus border showing once more the flexibility of the cell navigation support
You also need:
Snippet037 - Fancy Custom Tooltips
Demonstrates customizability of the 3.3 JFace-Support for cell tooltips using the Browser-Widget and presenting HTML
Snippet039 - List Viewer
Demonstrates a very simple usage of ListViewer
Snippet040 - Table Viewer Sorting
Demonstrates sorting (ascending/descending) in TableViewers by clicking the column header.
Snippet 041 - Table Viewer Alternating Colors and Viewer Filters
Demonstrates how to achieve alternating row-colors with TableViewer. It can also be used in conjunction with virtual-bits to even work with big tables (e.g. 100,000 rows in this example). In addition, this snippet provided a button that will demonstrate the usage of viewer filters.
Snippet043 - Tree Viewer Keyboard Editing
Demonstrates the JFace 3.3 keyboard editing support for Trees without columns. Tabbing from editor to editor is supported since 3.4. In addition, this snippet provided a button that shows how to enter in edit mode programmatically.
Snippet044 - Table Viewer Keyboard Editing
Demonstrates the JFace 3.3 keyboard editing support for Tables without columns. Tabbing from editor to editor is supported since 3.4.
You also need:
Snippet045 - Table Viewer Fill From Background Thread
Demonstrates how a TableViewer with a sorter can be filled from a NON-UI thread
Snippet046 - Update Viewer From Background Thread
Demonstrates how to update a viewer from a long-running task (which is executed in a thread) and calls back to the UI-Thread using "asyncExec".
Snippet047 - Virtual Lazy Tree Viewer
Demonstrates the usage of ILazyContentProvider in conjunction with a Virtual-TreeViewer. The snippet shows how using a lazy tree can minimize the memory footprint and maximize the speed when viewing large models.
Snippet048 - Tree Viewer Tab With Checkbox
Demonstrates how to overcome a limitation when it comes to key-navigation and CheckBoxEditors in 3.3.1.
This is a workaround for Bug #198502
Snippet049 - Styled Cell Label Provider
Demonstrates a LabelProvider-Type which uses StyleRanges. This Snippet requires SWT/JFace 3.4.
Snippet050 - Delegating Styled Cell Label Provider
Demonstrates how you can add styled text by wrapping an existing label provider. This Snippet requires SWT/JFace 3.4.
Snippet051 - Table Centered Image
Demonstrate how to center an image and create graphics in a cell using a technique called "owner draw".
Snippet052 - Double Click Cell Editor
Demonstrate how to start cell-editors on double click.
Snippet053 - Start Editor With Context Menu
Demonstrate how to start up a cell editor with a context menu and not with mouse clicking on the cell.
Snippet055 - Hide Show Column
Demonstrate hiding and showing columns and starting a cell editor programmatically.
Snippet056 - Boolean Cell Editor
Demonstrate a custom cell-editor which uses a real Checkbox-Button
You also need these classes:
Snippet057 - Table Viewer Skip Hidden Cells
Example of showing how easy cell-navigation with hidden cells is. Use the cursor keys to navigate between cells. Then use the context menu to hide a column.
Snippet058 - Cell Navigation
Shows how to automatically reveal cells when navigating. Run the snippet and then edit the first cell by double-clicking. Pressing the tab key will advance to the next cell in edit mode and reveal the cell if it is not in the viewport.
Snippet060 - Text Cell Editor With Content Proposal/Field assists
Show how to use content-proposal inside a CellEditor
Snippet061 - Faked Native Cell Editor
Full-featured native-looking viewer with checkboxes in an arbitrary column
You also need these classes:
Snippet062 - Text And Dialog Cell Editor
Demonstrates usage of TextAndDialogCellEditor. The email column uses the TextAndDialogCellEditor; othe columns use ordinary TextCellEditor.
You also need these classes:
Snippet063 - Combo Viewer
Show how to use ComboViewer and set an initial selection
Snippet064 - Replacing elements in a TreeViewer with child elements
A TreeViewer with observable collections as input, to demonstrate, how elements are replaced, especially what happens to selected items on replacement
Snippet065 - Replacing elements in a TreeViewer without child elements
A TreeViewer with observable collections as input, to demonstrate, how elements are replaced, especially what happens to selected items on replacement
Snippet066 - TableViewer with Label Decorator
A TableViewer that shows how to add a status icon to a Label with IStyledLabelProvider and DecorationOverlayIcon
Window
Snippet020 - Customized Control Tooltips
Demonstrates usage of JFace 3.3 to show really cool ToolTips for your controls
For full fun you also need:
Snippet031 - Table Static Tooltip
Demonstrates creation of ToolTips for Tables without using the JFace-Viewers API but only JFace-Tooltips
Wizard
Snippet047 - Wizard with Long Running Operation from Page
Demonstrates how to work with JFace-Wizards and fill a TableViewer from a Background-Thread without blocking the UI showing a progress bar in the meanwhile
Snippet071 - Wizard with Progress and Cancel
Demonstrates a wizard with internal progress.
Snippet072 Wizard with Progress Subtasks and Cancel
Demonstrates a wizard with internal progress using SubMonitor and subtasks.
Snippet074 Wizard with access to application window
Demonstrates a wizard that enables access to the calling shell...
