Portable Eclipse Juno with plugins - eclipse

I am currently trying to make an Eclipse istallation with installed plugins portable, so that you only have to copy the whole "eclipse"-folder to another system and have the same setup as on the original system.
My problem now is, that since eclipse 4.2 (?) when using Help > Install new Software... plugins are installed externally into the folder
C:/Users/Username/.eclipse/org.eclipse.platform_4.2.0_identifier
and not into the folder where the "eclipse.exe" is located:
C:/Program Files (x86)/eclipse
Now my question is if it is possible to make eclipse install additional plugins into the plugins/features-folder of eclipse's home folder (C:/Program Files (x86)/eclipse).
Unfortunately, it isn't possible to use the dropins-folder, because one plugin that shall be installed only exists as an update site.
I'm using
Windows 7 Professional Service Pack 1 64bit
with
Eclipse IDE for C/C++ Developers
Version: Juno Service Release 2
32-bit (to provide portability).
Greets :)

Do not put your eclipse installation under the "Program Files" folder. Eclipse will install all plugins to its own folder by default, unless that folder is not writable from Eclipse. And the "Program Files" folder should not be writable by you (unless you are using administrative access rights). Only the trusted installer service account should modify that folder (following Windows guidelines).
Therefore unzip Eclipse somewhere else into a location where anyone is allowed to write, install your plugins and zip the whole folder again.
As an alternative to that ZIP package you may want to look at File -> Export -> Install -> Software items to file, where you can export (and re-import) a list of your already installed plugins.

What mack is trying to do should work, this is essentially what the eclipse foundation do to provide the various distros.
The plugin that is only available as an update site could be installed into and existing in-installation then copied to the new distro. Only trick is making sure you have all the feature and plugin jar files.

Related

Offine installation of PMD plugin for Eclipse IDE

I am trying to download and install PMD plugin for Eclipse offline but did not succeed in doing so.
I downloaded following 2 zips:
net.sourceforge.pmd.eclipse-3.2.6.v200903300643.zip (this version matches with the one which I installed online)
pmd-eclipse-1.8.0
Not sure which one to use and how to configure it in Eclipse.
I searched a lot but did not find proper steps for the offine installation and configuration.
In case it contains site archieve:
Goto Help->Install New Software
Click Add...
In the Add Repository Dialog click Archive and point to your zip. Rest of the installation is as you would do with an online installation.
Else:
Extract the zip
Copy all plugins to your target eclipse plugins folder
Copy all features to your target eclipse features folder
launch eclipse with -clean option
You can get the latest 4.0 version of the plugin by pointing your Eclipse installer here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pmd/files/pmd-eclipse/update-site/

Custom Eclipse packages

I would like to make an offline Eclipse installation with JDT, CDT and a few other plugins. This is what I would like to do, in decreasing preference:
Create an installation package similar to the ones available for download on the Eclipse website. Question: How can this be done? How are they created? Is there some kind of automated tool that gets the packages from p2 repositories and builds them? Is there a detailed explanation somewhere of how they are created? (I am aware of Yoxos, but that is a few versions old)
Do the installation on an internet-connected computer, and then copy the folder to another computer. Question: Can this be done? Will a simple Copy/Paste work correctly? Is there anything I can delete from the installation that will be automatically recreated?
Use an Eclipse package, say JDT, and a downloaded copy (zip file?) of the CDT and other plugins, and install them on the target machine using the standard Eclipse plugin installation from a local archive method. Question Where can I get these downloads?
The simplest approach you could use is to start from the eclipse "classic" package downloaded directly from the site, and then manually install the other components you need via update manager. You can then zip the eclipse directory and distribute it without any problem.
Otherwise you could try to use Yoxos to create your package, download and distribute it

Qt Eclipse Integration not working

I was hoping to use the Qt plugin with Eclipse. The installation is very simple - just expand a tarball in the appropriate directory. After doing so, I can see trolltech folders under eclipse/features and eclipse/plugins. However, when I try to create a project, I see no sign of any Qt option. Nor do I see Qt listed in the Installed Software listing of plugins or features.
Eclipse: Galileo Build 3.5.2
CDT: 6.0.0.2
O/S: Ubuntu 10.10 i686 2.6.35-28-generic
Plugin in tarball: qt-eclipse-integration-linux.x86.1.6.1.tar.gz from here: http://qt.nokia.com/developer/eclipse-integration/
Starting Eclipse with -consolelog -debug didn't offer any enlightenment
Have the Qt plugins aged past their use-by date?
Update
Installing to /usr/share/eclipse is a mistake
Installing to /usr/lib/eclipse works
I would suggest that that the instructions on the Qt page could use some revision. Instead of saying:
Find your eclipse/plugins folder
It might be better to add: The eclipse folder should contain the eclipse executable, eclipse.ini, the plugins directory, and the features directory.
This would have kept me from being fooled by /usr/share/eclipse, which has a feature directory and a plugins directory, but is not the correct place to install additional plugins.
Try untaring under the dropins directory instead. Modern versions of Eclipse will not pickup plugins overlaid over the existing plugins and features directories. If dropins doesn't work then these plugins declare dependencies on older versions of eclipse components.
Find out where your eclipse installation lies in terminal. I have mine extracted to ~/tools/eclipse/
$ which eclipse
Navigate to the folder and extract the plugins into the plugins folder, the features into the features folder.
Start Eclipse back up and go to Window->Preferences->QT. Click Add and navigate to the executable directory. For me as of version 4.8.1 it was in /Qt/Desktop/Qt/4.8.1/gcc/bin. The includes directory auto updated to /Qt/Desktop/Qt/4.8.1/gcc/include, click Apply and restart if necessary.
After this I can create a new Qt Gui projects, Qt gui classes, Qt resource files and Qt console projects in addition to Qt Designer forms.

Changing default plugin installation directory in Eclipse 3.5.2

With the new Eclipse 3.5.2 Update manager, I am not able to find, how do I specify installation directory for my plugins. I use it, so that I can manage multiple installation of eclipse, without installation plugins again. Can anybody provide me settings, so that I can specify location for plugin, while installing it ?
You can use an external dropins folder, with the setting (in your eclipse.ini):
-Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory=C:/jv/eclipse/mydropins
Now, the trick is:
If you install a new plugin through Eclipse itself, it will install it directly in its own plugins/features internal directories.
It is up to you to move those jars in a similar directory structure in your external dropins directory.
So this is not an exact solution for your problem, but at least that allows you to isolate those plugins in a shared external directory which will be read by different Eclipse installation on each Eclipse session startup.

How to install a custom plug-in in Eclipse Ganymede?

We have a custom plug-in. That is, the company where I'm working developed it in house.
I would like to install it as an available plug-in in Eclipse Ganymede. How do I do that?
From what I can figure out, the Eclipse software install only supports installation from Eclipse software update sites.
I went to Help -> Install New Software... -> Add -> Local...
to browse to a folder containing the plug-in. Although the dialog lets me add the directory as an update site, it doesn't work. It expects that directory to be a local Eclipse update site (I think). I get the error
No repository found at file:/G:/TOOLS/...
Next I just copied the plug-in into the plug-in directory under my Eclipse installation. That didn't work either. I also tried copying it into the dropins directory. No dice.
Can anyone enlighten me how to install a plug-in that's not on an "update" site?
Thanks in advance....
Usually an Eclipse plug-in packaged as zip file is install by extracting it into the Eclipse installation directory (or the plugins directory depending on how it is packaged, as it can also extract files in features directory).
Next restart Eclipse with the --clean option.
Did you check the Eclipse error log? Maybe the bundle is failing to deploy for some reason.
Otherwise, create a Feature and Update Site for your plugin as described here. An update site can either be a remote http server (SVN even), or a local directory. The nice thing is that you'll get versioning and the ability to upgrade and uninstall from inside Eclipse. It also makes things easier once your plugin grows into several plugins because they can be bundled together into a single, versioned feature.