Eclipse Platform 4.10 introduced “Link Handlers”. With that Eclipse platform can now handle custom URL schemes.
In the meantime the Link Handler infrastructure has been adaopted by various projects.
- The Eclipse Marketplace client can handle links with the eclipse+mpc:// scheme. With this installing a new feature into your IDE is just as simple as clicking a link.
- Eclipse Platform 4.16 can handle links with the eclipse+command:// scheme. Via this one can simply execute a command (like opening an preference page, cloning a git repository, ...) inside the IDE with the click of a link.
Handling of custom URL schemes in an application includes registering the application on operating system level. Link handlers take away all that operating system specific bourdon from you. You only need to implement you domain specific logic.
This sessions explains the concept of custom URL schemes, how powerful this concept is, how they work on different operating systems and how easy it is to implement a handler for custom URL schemes in an Eclipse plugin.