Project Natures

Identifier: org.eclipse.core.resources.natures

Description: The workspace supports the notion of project natures (or "natures" for short").  A nature associates lifecycle behaviour with a project.  Natures are installed on a per-project basis and are configured automatically when a project is opened and deconfigured when a project is closed.  For example, the Java nature might install a Java builder and do other project configuration when a project is opened.

The natures extension-point allows nature writers to register their nature implementation under a symbolic name that is then used from within the workspace to find and configure natures. The symbolic name it the id of the nature extension.

Configuration Markup:

   <!ELEMENT nature runtime?>
   <!ATTLIST nature
      id             CDATA #REQUIRED
      name           CDATA #REQUIRED
   >

   <!ELEMENT runtime parameter*>
   <!ATTLIST runtime
      class          CDATA #REQUIRED
   >    <!ELEMENT parameter EMPTY>
   <!ATTLIST parameter
      name         CDATA #REQUIRED
      value        CDATA #REQUIRED
   > Examples:

Following is an example of a builder configuration:

   <extension point="org.eclipse.core.resources.natures">
      <nature id="com.xyz.coolNature" name="Cool Nature">
         <runtime class="com.xyz.natures.Cool">
            <parameter name="installBuilder" value="true"/>
         </runtime>
      </nature>
   </extension>

API Information: The value of the class attribute must represent an implementor of org.eclipse.core.resources.IProjectNature.

Supplied Implementation: The platform itself does not have any predefined natures. Particular product installs may include natures as required.

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