Is it possible to create an Eclipse installation package, that contains a bunch of bundles and plugins? If so, how? (Like the ones that are already being offered by Eclipse.org and also from different vendors with their own projects)
The reason I am asking is, that I find it very time-consuming to install a bunch of software into development environment every time I need a clean installation of Eclipse (based on various reasons, corruptions etc.).
So I would like to install all the software I need at once, and save it somewhere else before working with it (as a backup) and if something goes wrong I can install the entire base installation again without being have to handle all the extra software in it.
Thanks!
Eclipse is downloadable as a zip or tar file, so you can dezip it in a folder, add your favorites plugins (their will be store in the eclipse folder in plugins subfolder) and create a new archive with your modified environment (your eclipse folder).
I think It's the simple way to create a backup.
I hope it may help you,
Have a nice day
One option is to use Yoxos, which allows you to create your own package of Eclipse and easily share it (including with yourself).
Related
When i click add in the target-editor i can choose between:
Directory (just plug-ins on the filesystem)
Installation (only plug-ins, too?)
Features (one or more from the filesystem)
and Software Site (e.g. p2-repository)
So what's the difference between a installation (such as eclipse-SDK) and a directory, when the installation just fetch the plugins? I thought a installation would resolve my features, too. But it seems there is another difference, so what's the benefit?
Edit: Note if you want to use features with the type "installation", it's necessary to unjar the features.
An Eclipse installation contains metadata as to what was installed via Help -> Install New Software and other similar means. Since the installation process verifies dependencies, you know that your target platform is valid and will run. Defining target via an install will use the install's metadata to populate the target. Note that Eclipse has not been automatically detecting plugins copied into the plugins directory for several years now.
If you define a target by pointing at a folder that you put together by copying plugins, you do not know if the dependencies of those plugins are satisfied, so your target may not run.
I'm looking for advice regarding best practices for sharing an Eclipse project among developers.
It seems clear to me that each developer should have his/her own Eclipse workspace. However, projects seem to loan themselves better for many users to use the same project, e.g., if several users are working on a particular component, they are all likely to need to use the component's project, since if they each had their own project, they'd each have to set up and maintain the same project dependencies, etc. Looking to see if this is what other folks do or if their are reasons to give each developer his own project for a particular component.
Also, if the recommendation is to share a project, what are recommendations for configuration managing an Eclipse project? In the past we have used ClearCase, but we are now looking to change to Git or SVN. In the ClearCase world, it would seem advisable to do frequent checkins and merges to help the team stay up to date. Again, I'm looking for opinions from folks who have already lived this.
Thanks for any recommendations or external "how to" books or websites!
Thanks,
Ken
Sharing an Eclipse project doesn't cause any problem. Just put the .classpath, .project files and the .settings directory (and any project-related config file/directory that Eclipse generates at the root of the project) under source control.
Also, avoid using absolute paths in your project (for external libraries, for example), since all the developers don't necessarily have the same setup and use the same locations.
Git, SVN or ClearCase : it doesn't matter : all allow sharing Eclipse files.
We put the entire eclipse project folder under version control (with an svn:ignore for the directory containing the compiled classes).
This allows us to share not only the build configuration, but also launch configurations (with the proper VM-parameters), the configuration for compiler warnings the team considers relevant, and the formatter configuration for the coding conventions in use. We can also set text file encodings that way.
...avoid using absolute paths in your project
Good point.
We've had some issues with this in ClearCase. Our third party libs were placed in a different part of the filesystem under version control. So to avoid absolute paths to the libs we added an ant script. The script would copy the libs to a view private directory that was directly under the project root.
We then added a builder to the project to make sure that the script was run first at every clean + rebuild.
I use the google plugin for eclipse with GWT and Appengine libraries. Every so often I upgrade one of the libraries, which currently involves:
I install the update somewhere on my HD
I add the update as an alternative SDK in eclipse, with a generic name
I update the project settings to point to the new generic name
I commit the changed settings files (which do NOT include the upgraded library) to our source control
The problem here are in unfortunate steps 5-7:
5 Everyone else's builds stop working past the change,
6 I go from machine to machine, repeating steps 1 and 2, and
7 I think for the nth time, "I should really find a way to automate this."
I'm here for the elusive step 8: Actually automating this. I want to include the SDK in my source control, so when I switch between versions or set up shop on a new machine, the relevant SDKs are automatically installed and downloaded. I don't want to have to configure eclipse settings at all. In my ideal situation, I am willing to install Eclipse and the GPE on each machine, but after that I just want to clone my repository and go.
I've tried doing this by removing the GWT library from my build settings, copying the entire GWT installation folder into the root of my project, and adding gwt-user.jar and gwt-dev.jar to the build path from there. This almost works, but eclipse complains that it can't find gwt-servlet.jar (even though it exists precisely where it claims to be looking for it!). There also seem to be other magical settings I don't understand.
Finally, the question: If this is the right track, what settings do I need to manually control? If this is the wrong track, what's the right one?
+1 good question. This may or may not answer your question, but I can share with you what I do. I also work with GAE and GWT.
I just include the SDK .tar/.zip files in my repository, remove the version numbers from the filename, and update it when I want to move to a new version. If that version migration fails, I can easily revert to the old SDKs. I also use GXT and a bunch of other GWT extensions, so my problem is even worse than yours. I don't use eclipse for GAE nor GWT, so I can't relate to the problems you are having there. If you don't want to have to configure eclipse every time, then don't use eclipse.
Disclaimer: I hate eclipse.
I want to create an automated installer for an Eclipse plugin (i.e. not through the "Update Manager"). My scenario is simple: the user closes Eclipse, drops a downloaded JAR into the dropins folder, starts Eclipse and the rest of the process is automated.
In older Eclipse versions, before the era of P2, Eclipse had (still has) a class called InstallCommand which could be used to install pluings into the currently running platform.
While this still works in Eclipse 3.4 & 3.5, it is not behaving properly: most noticeably, plugins installed that way cannot be automatically uninstalled (it is dimmed).
The JavaDoc claims the InstallCommand is deprecated and should be replaced by a P2 alternative. However, I couldn't find the right tool for the job. There is the P2 director, but it is built for running as a separate application from the command line. It is possible to invoke it from within Eclipse but it is really not cut out for that. For example, progress monitoring and error reporting are not working well.
Does anybody know of a good alternative for that?
Thanks,
Zviki
Dropins seems very close to what you want, especially if they are just downloading jars without the associated metadata (ie the metadata will need to be auto-generated).
You could consider defining a second dropins area to manage yourself. Take a look at ProfileSynchronizer in org.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins, in particular the method createProfileChangeRequest. I expect the uninstall behaviour you don't like is a result of the IInstallableUnit.PROP_PROFILE_LOCKED_IU property being added.
The dropins are reconciled at startup, see the p2.reconciler.dropins Activator.watchDropins(), you can likely do the same from your own bundle to watch another folder.
I suggest to deploy your plugin as an executable JAR. The installer in the JAR should ask for the Eclipse install directory and unpack the plugin in the right place (plus some more checks as needed).
Optionally include a little "watchdog" plugin which doesn't depend on much and just checks that your main plugin loads correctly and displays a useful error message which the user can email to you for support.
According to information in bug 311590 1 which is referenced in the deprecation comment of InstallCommand an alternative is possibly to use P2 operations 2, 3.
After searching around I see that eclipse 3.4/3.5 now allow you to use their 'dropin' folder to manually install plugins.
This works well in a situation where you have already downloaded the feature and plugin files, however in cases where you use the Software Updates feature to simply point to a URL and download a plugin, you don't appear to have control over what folder the plugin is installed into.
Is it possible to force plugins to be installed to an arbitrary dropin folder, or otherwise export a plugin to a location so that it can be shared with other people's eclipse installations?
I'd prefer not to have to comb through the plugin info and manually determine which plugin jars to copy into a dropin folder :P
Thanks
I think the answer in this thread and the mentioned blog post of Michael Scharf can be useful for you, although the procedure is not as simple as it should be :(
The new p2 system in 3.4 is supposed to have a feature called bundle pooling that allows for shared plugins. However, I haven't used it, so I'm not sure about the particulars. I hope this at least points you in the right direction.
When using 3.4.1 you can still enable the "old" update manager in Preferences/ General/ Capabilities. Then you can use the extension points again. But it has been removed in 3.4.2 completely.
You have to remove P2 to get the old update manager.
Note: The P2 team managed to broke everything backward compatible. This tricks does not work with 3.5.