While developing EGL applications, you use the workbench to manage your files, write your code, and test and deploy your application. The workbench includes code editors similar to editors for other programming languages, but it also includes a range of graphical tools for working with EGL code and the many other types of code and files that the workbench understands.
Eclipse gives you the ability to change the set of tools that it offers and choose which tools appear in the interface. Each different tool set is called a perspective, and the windows within a perspective are called views and editors. You will learn more about these concepts later in this topic.

Functions in a GUI are typically listed in a menu bar at the top of the window. In the picture above, the menu bar lists menus beginning with File, Edit, and Navigate. The menus drop down when you click the menu item with the mouse. The Eclipse menu bar contains global options for the workbench, such as the location of the workspace, commands for importing and exporting files, search commands, and help menus.
With the menu bar, you can also open and close views and perspectives. You can click to open a view or to open a perspective.
The icons on these toolbars are shortcuts for commands found elsewhere in the workbench, such as in the menu bar or on the popup menu that appears when you right-click a file. You can customize the toolbars shown by clicking and selecting or clearing check boxes on the Commands tab.
The EGL editor looks and works like a standard text editor or code editor for other languages, but it has additional features to help you edit EGL code. The code editor highlights invalid syntax, provides an explanation for problems in the code, and colors keywords and strings.
The EGL editor also includes content assist, which attempts to complete code that you have begun to type. To use content assist, type the first few characters of a variable name, library name, or EGL keyword and press CTRL + Space. A content assist window opens, listing valid EGL code phrases that begin with the code you have typed. Select a code phrase from the list by highlighting it and pressing Enter or double-clicking it.
The Project Explorer view shows all of your files and projects. Within the projects, this view shows your files in a hierarchical arrangement. Click a plus sign to expand a package or folder and expose the files inside. Double-click a file to open it in its default editor. Right-click a file, project, or folder to display a context-sensitive menu of options. From this menu, you can delete or rename files, among many other options. You can also click and drag files from place to place in the view. You can group projects in this view by defining working sets, or groups of projects or other elements. See Working sets.
In the previous image, the Generation Results view is "stacked," or hidden behind the Problems view. You can switch to a hidden view by clicking the tab with the name of the view you want, which brings that view to the top of the stack. You can also double-click the name of a view to expand that view to fill the workbench. Double-clicking the name again will return the view to its original size.
Aside from the main workbench window, EGL developers will often need to use other windows. Following are some examples:












Capabilities can be enabled or disabled to display or hide functionality. For example, if the Tester capability is disabled, perspectives and views related to testing will not be available. You can manually enable a capability in the Preferences window by clicking and then selecting the check boxes next to the capabilities you want to enable. Alternately, when you try to create a file or open a perspective that is associated with a disabled capability, the workbench will prompt you to enable the associated capability.
The main capability that EGL developers use is the EGL Developer capability. Enabling this capability makes EGL-related perspectives available, which in turn makes tools available for working with EGL code. See Enabling EGL capabilities.
The perspectives available to you depend on the capabilities enabled in your workbench. For example, if the Tester capability is disabled, you will not see the Test perspective as an option in .
You can switch perspectives at any time without losing your work, and you can have as many perspectives open as you want. Often, developers switch between perspectives as they perform different tasks. To switch between perspectives, open the perspectives you want with or click a perspective's icon in the Perspectives bar, which is typically at the top right corner of the workbench.
You can also create customized perspectives that show only the tools you want. To create a customized perspective, open an already existing perspective and tailor it to your needs by repositioning its views and editors and opening or closing views and editors. Then, click and type a name.
Views are flexible; you can move them around the workbench, resize them, minimize or maximize them, stack them on top of other views, or close them. To close a view, click the X at the top of the view. To open a view, either open a perspective that contains that view or click and click the name of a view. You can have as many views open as you want, but it is best to organize your views into one or more perspectives.
Other editors are graphical, with drag-and-drop tools or what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) preview tools. For example, with Page Designer you can edit a web page by clicking and typing directly in the web page. You can also drag web page elements onto the page from views such as the Palette view.
Still other editors are tabular and provide tables in which you enter values. For example, the EGL build parts editor enables you to edit a Build Descriptor part by entering the values for build descriptor options in a table.
In general, when you double-click a file in a view that displays files, such as the Project Explorer or Navigator, that file opens in its default editor. You can also right-click the file, and then click Open With to see a list of editors that can open that file, or you can click to open the file outside of the workbench, in the default editor for that type of file in the operating system.
For more information on using the workbench effectively, see these sources: