How to find the execution steps of an Eclipse plugin project - eclipse

I am using Eclipse JUNO IDE in which I have imported an eclipse plugin project.
When I execute the project, a new copy of the eclipse window is opened and the plugin is displayed in the File Menu as "New Sample Project" in between the "New" option and "Open File" option. The plugin works normally.
From this project I wanted to know which file executes first and how the execution proceeds.
While this is the way to find the order of execution of a simple java program, is there a way to find the code execution order of a plugin project, which has many packages and each package has many java files?
I am new to eclipse plug-in development. Please help

Eclipse plugin project is different than normal Java project and also its execution.
Before jumping into execution steps, I think you better go through plugin project Manifest file details. It will give you overview of plugins that are contributed into your new eclipse instant and their implementation class in project.
Go through different tab in the manifest file. I will brief some of important things for you:
Overview: General info of you plugin. In general information section you will find Activator, which points your activator of plugin which will load your plugin.(You can say it as starting point as it controls plugin life cycle but not clearly starting point)
Dependencies: Plugins required and on which your projects are depended.
Extension: Here you will add Extension Points required for your plugin like view, editor, action,command. Here you can see overview of things which will be contributed through your plugin project.
Hope this helps.

Related

Easy way to find which Eclipse version and plugins are needed for existing Eclipse project

I was given a working Eclipse project in Java. If I open it in some version of Eclipse then I get numerous errors. I get them because my version of Eclipse differs (it is not web developer) and vaadin and ivy plugins were used to create the project. How can I understand which version of Eclipse and which plugins are needed? I can get some sense by looking in .setting folder. There are a lot of files with names as namespaces related to plugins. Is there more direct or automatic/semi automatic way to find which plugins and Eclipse version are needed?
No. The Eclipse developers expect you to know your tools and if you take over a project from someone else or join a project, that someone explains to you how to install and configure Eclipse.
To find out which Eclipse plugins you need, look into the file .project and the folder .settings. Google for the file names and plugin IDs to see what they might mean. Usually, the third word of the name is the project (org.eclipse.jdt.* -> JDT project).
For missing classes, you need to look at the classpath. The easiest way to do that is to right-click on your project name and then select "Properties" from the menu. There is an entry "Build Path" which contains all the dependencies. Click through the tabs to see what you need.
For plugin projects, look into the file META-INF/MANIFEST.MF; Eclipse should open a special editor when you open it which has a tab for dependencies.

How to use SVN to build a library

I am trying to follow a tutorial, and I am told to:
1- Get the source code for the Java EMV Reader library from http://code.google.com/p/javaemvreader/ and build it.
2- Drop the resulting jar file in lib/.
3- Import the project in Eclipse and build it.
I right click the java files, and choose run as but don't get an option to run as Java Application. I also can not export the files as a JAR file. I have enclosed an image of what I have
After the first comment, I right clicked on my project, and under Maven, chose the option "configure as Maven" project. ( Thank you so much; this must be one of the fastest resolutions in the world )And I can now run the project. I get the window in my pic2, which I have attached. I don't however know what step 2 of the above instructions means. I don't see a lib/ folder. And the project he is refering to in step 3 is on git. Any ideas on what he means? ![pic2]!1
Eclipse projects have a "type" and that controls what tools are available. You probably created a "Basic Project" which means there are no compilers or other Java tools associated with it. You would want to create a Java Project in Eclipse.
That project does not seem to have Eclipse .project and .classpath files checked into the repository. It does look to be a Maven project however. So you would either want the m2eclipse plugins installed, and check this out as a Maven project, which would handle configuring everything else, or you want to use the Checkout As ... option and use the wizard to create a new Java project to checkout.
These are more Eclipse IDE questions than SVN or Subclipse questions.

Eclipse - How to open and set breakpoints in code attached to the target platform plugins?

I am a newbie to Eclipse. I have some plug-ins installed in my eclipse workbench along with their source plugins (thus i have attached code with these plugins).
How can I open(and view) the source code of these installed plugins and set break-points so that I could debug these plug-ins?
My motive behind this task is to get a deeper understanding of the source code of some of these plug-ins.
Though the post How to set a breakpoint in Eclipse in a third party library? explains some methods, it doesn't tell how to open and view the attached source code.
Thanks in advance.
If you only need breakpoints, use Ctrl-Shift-T (Open Type), enter the name of the class and set the breakpoints.
But if you really want to learn about the plugin in question, there is more: Open PDE perspective, there is a view "Plugins". Select the plugin you are interested in, choose Import->As Source from the context menu of the plugin. This imports the plugin into your workspace, so you can really investigate all artifacts inside, not only the source. By default, your launch configuration will use the plugins from the workspace as first choice, so you can even modify that imported plugin now and see the effects when running your workspace.

Importing Eclipse Plugin source in Eclipse

I have the source code for the VersionOne plugin. I am wanting to modify the code because I am getting a NullPointerException when I click a specific button on the plugin which crashes eclipse. I was wondering what steps I need to take in eclipse to import the source code, modify it, and get it to run. I have read over how to create a new plugin project, but I have never tried importing a plugin before. Plugin Source
Once you have imported the project and that seems to work fine, just run it like any other plugin.
I.e:
Set the breakpoints you want in the code
Click the "Run as..."
In the run dialog start up a new Eclipse instance
On the tab "plugins" make sure your imported plugin is selected
If you are using the plugin at the same time, make sure that the non-workspace is not selected
In the new Eclipse instance, set up a situation that will provoke the bug
You need the following things to do that:
From Eclipse download a distro with PDE (Plugin Development) included.
The source pages
Some configuration management tool like Git or Subversion.
You do then the following steps:
Unzip your sources locally somewhere and add them to the CM system.
Create an eclipse plugin project from that source location (depending on Git or SVN different steps).
Create a run configuration for Eclipse that includes that plugin. That is similar to creating a run configuration for Java, but your Java application is then eclipse (see the Help on Eclipse Application Launcher). You have to ensure that in the "Plug-ins Tab", your new plugin is included. After you have started it, you should see the new feature implemented in the new running eclipse. To debug it, you just have to press the debug button instead of the run button. You may then add breakpoints to the source code of your plugin to see how it is working.
You are then able to start a new eclipse application which includes the plugin and make your tests there. You are able to set breakpoints, debug the code and so on. If you find the error, you can change the code, test it, and as a result have a difference to the source you had initially. The best would be then to make a patch and send it back to the originator.
To deploy it then to others is a different story, and is well documented.

Eclipse plugin sample could not be run

On my Mac computer, I follow the tutorial on this page to get the Taipan example run, but still failed so many times.
Switch to the Plug-in Development perspective and open the models folder within the org.eclipse.gmf.examples.taipan project. Explore each of the models found hereand their element properties. You'll notice that there are full and RCP versions of the generated Taipan examples to explore.
When I try to run as "Eclipse application", it launches a new eclipse app but the dialog box Examples does not have the 'Taipan Diagram' as it says:
create an empty project and a new 'TaiPan Diagram' found in the Examples folder of the New dialog
What are the possible causes? Someone helps me to solve it out?
I'm assuming that your plugin is working fine and doesnt show compilation errors?
Then the most likely reason is that you havent chosen your plugin to be active in your launch dialog.
I answered a similar question with this:
My guess is that you have just created the plugin, but aren't running it in your current Eclipse instance. That can be verified by opening the view "Plugin registry". That will show a list of all plugins, see if the plugin you have created is in that list.
If you click on the run button in Eclipse you will open a run configuration dialog. In one of the tabs, you get to choose what plugins should be available. Make sure your plug-in is selected. This will start up a new Eclipse instance that will run your plugin.
To make your plugin be a part of your ordinary Eclipse installation, you will need to export it to a jar and copy that jar to the dropins catalog.