[1] GEF was initially developed as part of IBM's etools (com.ibm.etools.gef) and was contributed to Eclipse in 2002 in version 2.0.0, consisting then of two components: Draw2d, a 2D visualization component based on the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) and GEF (MVC), a related model-view-controller framework that can be used to realize graphical editors as part of Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) applications.
The next major version, GEF 3.0.0, was released in June 2004, providing many new features like support for rules and guides.
A new major revision of the framework has been developed in parallel to the maintenance of the GEF 3.x components by the project team since 2010.
It is a complete redesign that is much more modular, uses JavaFX instead of SWT as underlying rendering framework, and can be used also independently of Eclipse RCP applications.
GEF 3.x provides framework technology to realize graphical editors and views as part of Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) applications.