About Status Line Contributions

A status line contribution is the text and separators that appear in the status area of Sabre Red 360. The text corresponds to an active application that is running within either an editor or a view in Sabre Red 360.

A status line contribution provides information to end-users about the configuration, status, or action of your Red App. If you design a Red App that either waits for responses or locks the end user’s keyboard while the app is processing information, you must add a status line contribution. Sabre will reject applications that do not comply with this requirement.

The following example of a status line contribution has three sets of text messages and three separator bars. Sabre Red 360 places icons and separator bars on the right side of the status line. These are part of the interface; you cannot remove them or change them.

The example below shows a status line contribution in the com.sabre.redapp.example.editor.basic sample plug-in.

You can include any of the following status line contributions for editors and views. They can appear in any order or combination on a single line.

Message text
Vertical separator bars

The most common status line contributions include the following:

The modification of a standard message
The addition of a separator bar
The addition of new messages

The maximum quantity of characters that you can add to a status line depends upon screen resolution. The typeface and fonts should also be fixed-width. Results of testing by developers for an empty status line follow. If you add items such as a separator, the maximum quantity of characters is reduced. You are advised to test your status line contributions yourself.

A minimum screen resolution of 1024 x 768px has approximately 110 text characters.
A screen resolution of 1440 x 900px has approximately 190 text characters.

If the character count is excessive, Sabre Red 360 truncates the characters in the middle, for example, abcdefghijkl………rstuvwxyz.

Because you do not add extensions when you contribute to the status line, the plugin.xml file is not impacted. You are, however, required to add Java code to your plug-in.

Dependencies and Classes

Whether you are customizing a status line contribution or creating the status lines that the procedure in this chapter builds, both Eclipse and Sabre Red 360 have defined some dependencies and classes that are required to add status lines to a plug-in. These requirements follow.

Minimum Required Dependencies

The minimal dependencies for status line contributions are the same dependencies that

editors and

views require.

Required Classes for Editors

StatusLineContributionItem class. This class adds new status line contributions.
- initializeStatusLine(). This method includes all code that creates the status line contributions.
- createPartControl(). createPartControl() calls initializeStatusLine().
AbstractAppEditor. You extended this class when you created an editor.

Required Classes and Methods for Views

StatusLineContributionItem class. This class adds new status line contributions.
- initializeStatusLine(). This method includes all code that creates the status line contributions.
- createPartControl(). createPartControl() calls initializeStatusLine(). It is required to extend the createPartControl() method.
- setFocus(). It is required to extend this method. You added this method when you created a view.
ViewPart. You extended this class when you created a view.