Eclipse: Within a plug-in, how to access another plug-ins preference store? - eclipse-plugin

Question

I have an Eclipse plug-in with a checkbox in the plug-in's preference page.
This checkbox is used for enabling and disabling an editor, which is being launched from this plug-in.
However, the problem is, I would also like to be able to enable and disable this 'editor-launch' from another plug-in, by having actions which change the value of the checkbox in the above mentioned preference page.
Here's the problem, how do I access that local preference store from another plug-in?
I've tried things like..
View myView = (View) PlatformUI.getWorkbench().getActiveWorkbenchWindow().getActivePage().findView("ViewID");
But this 'myView' always seems to be null.. And also, what would I do with the view since it's the Plug-in I want.
Platform.getBundle('bundleName')...
Same here, want the Plugin, not the bundle corresponding to is.
No matter what I try nothing seems to work.
Does anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

There are two ways of doing this:
Please refer to http://www.vogella.com/tutorials/EclipsePreferences/article.html#preferences_pluginaccess
Using .getPluginPreferences(). For example, there is a plugin class "com.xxx.TestPlugin" which extends org.eclipse.ui.plugin.AbstractUIPlugin.Plugin, in order to get access to the preferences of TestPlugin. The plugin code could be below:
public class TestPlugin extends AbstractUIPlugin {
private static TestPlugin plugin;
public static final String PREF_TEST = "test_preference";
/**
* The constructor.
*/
public TestPlugin() {
plugin = this;
}
/**
* This method is called upon plug-in activation
*/
public void start(BundleContext context) throws Exception {
super.start(context);
}
/**
* This method is called when the plug-in is stopped
*/
public void stop(BundleContext context) throws Exception {
super.stop(context);
plugin = null;
}
/**
* Returns the shared instance.
*/
public static TestPlugin getDefault() {
return plugin;
}
}
To access the preference of TestPlugin, the code could be:
TestPlugin.getDefault().getPluginPreferences().getDefaultBoolean(TestPlugin.PREF_TEST);

Answer 2

Or have a look at this answer: Writing Eclipse plugin to modify Editor Preferences

Answer 3

This thread recommend the use of a Service tracker:
ServiceTracker tracker = new ServiceTracker(ToolkitPlugin.getDefault().getBundle().getBundleContext(),
IProxyService.class.getName(), null);
tracker.open();
proxyService = (IProxyService) tracker.getService();
proxyService.addProxyChangeListener(this);

Answer 4

This may work.
Prefs stores are found per plugin. This is one way to get a prefs store for the plugin whose activator class is ActivatorA.
IPreferenceStore store = ActivatorA.getDefault().getPreferenceStore();
If you want another plugin to refer to the same store, perhaps you could expose some api on ActivatorA for it to get there, e.g.
public IPreferenceStore getSharedPrefs() {
return ActivatorA.getDefault().getPreferenceStore();
}
The second plugin would find the shared store by doing this
IPreferenceStore sharedPrefs = ActivatorA.getSharedPrefs();
Good luck.