How do I build and install an Eclipse plugin using ant? I want to build a plugin as a zip file and then install the plugin on 32bit or 64bit eclipse. What am I supposed to do here?
Indeed, using PDE/Build to achieve a so-called headless build is difficult, but not impossible.
We are still building our RCP this way.
I recommend reading Paulin's and Sharma's tutorials on the issue.
The Eclipse PDE has its own builder which is built on ant. I'm not sure from your question if you are looking to simply build/export your plugin within eclipse or generate ant build scripts that can be run outside of eclipse. The latter is more difficult. Inside eclipse you can simple go to file -> export -> Plugin-Development -> Deployable plugin and the export wizard will walk you through it, you can select to deploy a zip or exploded directory and then select output location and presto you have your plugin built as a jar that can be dropped into an eclipse instance. If you are looking to use ant outside of eclipse to build you need to go through a series of steps that are complicated to get a 'headless build", if this is what you need to do Google "pde headless" build. I've tried it but gave up. There is also a good book "Building highly modular systems with OSGI/Equinox that has a chapter devoted to this. - Duncan
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Good morning guys,
what I am considering about is to build a standard process of installing a library in a java project in eclipse. I am a niewbie software developer so a prior sorry if this question is a bit stupid.
All what I want to do is to use the junit library. I have followed these septs.
I installed the junit-4.12.jar file from the web.
Inside the project folder I created a new file and I named it "lib".
I put in this folder thae jar file and then in eclipse I click
on project folder -> properties -> Java build path and I click on libraries and add jars. (not external jars).
Is that process ok?
your process isn't good because it doesn't scale: imagine you want to install 40 libraries in your project. and then imaging your team has 5 developers and each of them has to do the same. and what about CI server that must be automatic
in fact your problem was solved years ago and the solution is called 'dependency management tool'. those tools are usually built into something more powerful called 'build tool'. maven or gradle are examples of such tools. you just provide list of your dependencies (like junit) and that program automatically downloads them and build your project. and it's sufficient as long as your project is more less 'typical'
i don't remember if eclipse has build in support for maven (one of the oldest and most common). if not, just install the eclipse plugin and you're ready to go
I am trying to add build steps in an Eclipse project (Eclipse CDT Version: 3.8.0 on Debian).
For instance, when instructing Eclipse to build it would:
1- Run premake
2- Run make
You get the gist.
There's 0 tutorials on the subject and I looked everywhere... Is it because this feature doesn't exist? That's hard to believe...
There is no tutorial for Eclipse build :D
May be you want to build your project? Correct me if I am wrong.
As I know, Eclipse supports us to use Ant build to build/ execute the build step for projects (not for Eclipse itself) => build.xml
And If you really want to do some things else, i think create a bat file. and then execute it when start Eclipse is a suggestion.
I have an eclipse plugin, when I deploy it, I use a feature project then export through the wizard to get zip file to install in any eclipse based app.
How can I automate this ?
I want the whole process to run automatically.
Use the PDE Build stuff, also see the documentation.
I have implemented a graph editor with Eclipse EMF and GMF frameworks. After completing my project, I realized that this plugin shows dependencies (not explicitly added by me) on some OS-specific plugins.i.e:org.eclipse.ui.win32, org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86. And whenever I have tried to bypass this dependency at my update site something went wrong with the installation process of the plugin.
As such it is impossible to run my plugin in *nix environment or even win64 machines.This seems a very heavy constraint dependency to me. Am I doing something in a wrong way? Or is there no other way of building Eclipse plugins which are cross-platform other than building the project from scratch at each different OSs?
We created a similar style of plug-in in my project. Under "Plug-in Dependencies" in Package Explorer I can see org.eclipse.swt.win32 listed, but it is not listed in required plug-ins in plugin.xml.
We also successfully created an update site which works for Mac users without issue.
So, yes it is possible to have a cross-platform plug-in.
I would suggest you first try to to use "Export..." -> "Deployable plug-ins and fragments" to create a bunch of jar files for your plug-in. See if these can be successfully installed by copying into the drop-ins folder of a fresh eclipse installation. Do this first on a Win32 install, then try on another platform. Once you have that working, use the new Eclipse installation to create the Update site.
Does anybody have experience working with JavaRebel, specifically for a large web application built using Maven? There is a JavaRebel plugin for Maven that seems under-documented, does anybody have comments on how it works, can you really update one class in a Multi-module Enterprise Project and have it "automagically" change on your Server?
Are there any issues with different IDEs and this setup? For example NetBeans will not let you compile one class at a time in a Maven project (from what I can tell).
Disclaimer: I work for ZeroTurnaround.
JRebel (formerly JavaRebel) installation involves the application configuration file "rebel.xml" and modifying the container startup command line.
The Maven plugin is used to generate the "rebel.xml" file, that is used by the JRebel agent running in the container to find the files in the workspace. This allows to use IDE building to compile .java files and skip the Maven build process, as the changes to files will be picked up from the workspace. However as it relies on the IDE to compile the classes, it does depend on the IDE ability to compile efficiently. I know for sure that Eclipse will compile classes one at a time and am fairly sure you can configure NetBeans and IntelliJ IDEA to do the same.
In addition to the Maven/rebel.xml configuration you also need to configure the container startup command line. You may also need to install and IDE plugin or do some additional configuration to have the best expirience with JRebel. Following through the steps of Installation manual ensures that.
Hope this helps.
Disclaimer: I've not actually used this plugin myself.
This tutorial implies that JavaRebel works well with Eclipse 3.4. If you are also using m2eclipse it should work ok with Maven projects as well (as long as you ensure that Maven and Eclipse are compiling to the same target folder so the Eclipse incremental compiler can be used to modify the class file).
According to this post, you should configure the javarebel-maven-plugin to generate the rebel.xml (used to mount external folders to the application classpath). There's also a general installation guide you may find useful.