How to add editors to Eclipse? - eclipse

I noticed today that i don't have an HTML editor in my list. How can i add it and others if need be?

Install the Web Tools Platform -- or EE Devlopers version of Eclipse, which includes the Web Tools Platform.
Other types of files are usually automatically loaded as text files. To get specific language capabilities you usually want to install a development library for that language into Eclipse. i.e. CDT for C++, PyDev for Python, etc..
Also you can find how to associate arbitrary file types to specific editors here :Eclipse File Type Association.

Related

Start Eclipse just with the plugins you want

I use Eclipse IDE for all my project (PHP, Java, C, Python, Android). If I install them all in one edition it will take too long to start and I will have many buttons in my toolbar. Now I have Eclipse edition for each language. I type eclipse when I want to work with Java, eclipse-php for PHP. Is there a way to have just one eclipse edition and let me do this?
You can start Eclipse with the -configuration or osgi.configuration.area argument.
Form The Eclipse runtime options help:
osgi.configuration.area {-configuration}
the configuration location
for this run of the platform. The configuration determines what
plug-ins will run as well as various other system settings. See the
section on locations for more details.
A more detailed explanation how to use this feature is found here: How can I launch different workspaces with different sets of plugins?

How to add content assist for css, html.. in Eclipse?

Are there any libraries that we can add to Elipse to support context assist (css, html) like Netbean?
Many thanks,
Depending on which Eclipse package you installed you may already have the CSS and HTML editors. If you don't then you can install them using Help > Install New Software. Choose the software site for your version of Eclipse in the drop down list and look at the Web, XML, Jave EE and OSGi Enterprise Development section. The Eclipse Web Developer Tools section contains the editors you want but the other sections may also be of interest.
You can look at some plug-ins (http://marketplace.eclipse.org) providing support for editing HTML and CSS files.
Search in Editor category.

Best way to configure Eclipse Target-Platform?

What is the best way to configure target platform to develop Eclipse RCP application? Download 'pure' Eclipse and add only needed plug-ins in project or download Eclipse for RCP and RAP Developers? And what is better solution to add plugins? Open Eclipse-TP and download from eclipse-marketplace or manually copy jars to appropriate folders?
It depends on the set of plug-ins your RCP application depends on.
"RCP SDK" provides a minimal target platform, with source code.
"Platform SDK" provided more plug-ins, with source code. It includes more plug-ins than RCP SDK, without including the developer-oriented plug-ins of Eclipse IDEs. Unfortunately, this platform is not currently provided.
"Platform Runtime Binary" provides the same thing as Platform SDK -- without source code.
If you want to release on multiple platforms, also download the DeltaPack, which contains platform-specific resources for multiple platforms.
By the way, if you're adding the target platform to version control, use binary type for the following files in plugins/*/META-INF:
eclipse.inf -- line endings should be NL
MANIFEST.MF, ECLIPSE_.SF, and ECLIPSEF.SF (note the spelling) -- line endings
should be CR/NL

What's the difference between the "Java EE" and "rcp" distributions of Eclipse?

What are the differences, specifically, between the Java EE and RCP versions of Eclipse?
And how would one essentially get a "combined" version that includes all the best goodies for plugin development along with the best tools for Java EE?
I think what I'm looking for is the ability to create a "merged" instance entirely through the p2 updater. For example, if I open up a Java EE instance of Eclipse, open a java file, hit alt-shift-f1 to bring up plugin spy, and then click on "compilationuniteditor" to view the source of the java editor, I get .class. But in the RCP version, I get the source. How do I get those things in the Java EE editor using the normal Eclipse update mechanism? That's my goal here. What plugins in update manager contain what "essential bits" for each distribution.
Another example is installing all the Examples plugins. In the RCP distribution, you can easily install them from the "Welcome" page. So how, in the Java EE distribution, could you do the same thing?
The problem I'm trying to solve here is that I want to get away from maintaining two separate instances of Eclipse, since I do a fair amount of work in both RCP (for plugin development) and in Java EE (for webservice stuff, etc).
I started with the Eclipse for RCP Developers and used the "Help > Install New Software..." Feature to add in the "Web, XML, and Java EE Development" tools from the "Galileo" update site.
You may want to be a little choosier than I was and maybe exclude the "Rich Ajax Platform" and possibly the "PHP Development Tools" Features from the category.
It's better to use the "Install New Software" feature than to try and merge directories. The dependencies can be fairly complex and troubleshooting a merged directory can be a nightmare. Let p2 do the heavy lifting.
You can get a full comparison of all eclipse distros here.
Basically, the J2EE one includes the RCP ones, except for the fact that the RCP has the sources of some plugins, and not just their binaries.
To get a mix of the two, load them both, unzip them, and then compare the content of plugins and features sub-directories of both installations (with WinMerge for instance).
Copy any extra RCP files into the J2EE directories, and that should be enough.
From my understanding, the Java EE version comes with plugins for developing java programs whereas the RCP version includes the minimum number of plugins to build a rich client application.
These links should help:
http://wiki.eclipse.org/RCP_FAQ
http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/Rich_Client_Platform

Where should Eclipse third-party plugins be stored?

We have an Eclipse RCP product, which means it depends on a number of Eclipse plugins (for the UI etc). We have set up a reference Eclipse ("target") to supply the latter.
Our product also depends on a number of third party plugins. Is there a standard location for these to be put?
We have a few of our third-party plugins in the /plugins of the target Eclipse, but this seems wrong to me. The third party plugins change more frequently than, or at least in a different timeframe to, our reference Eclipse.
I tried putting some third party plugins in a separate project in the workspace (under version control), but the PDE headless build did not seem to find them - even though I used the pluginPath property in the headless build.properties.
This is Eclipse 3.4.2. I am aware than the handling of target platforms has changed somewhat in 3.5.
Most of the comments I've seen see on the web about this seem to assume that you're writing a plugin to be added to a standard Eclipse installation. We're not, it's a completely separate product.
For my RCP applications I created a customized target platform directory for it to use (e.g. rcpapptarget). Under that directory I unzip the following packages:
eclipse-RCP-SDK-3.4.2-win32.zip
eclipse-3.4.2-delta-pack.zip
Then I add what ever other eclipse or third party plug-ins that my application will need. For example:
the latest GEF all .zip file
jay libs EclipseCallBasic_1.1.0 plug-in
derby distributed plug-in
additional eclipse plug-ins needed for help support, cheatsheets, updates etc.
I then setup a workspace for developing that RCP application and point the workspace's "Target Platform" to use that customized target platform directory. I do all my development using that target platform and my headless builds use it too.
To set the target platform choose the Window | Preferences command and then select Plug-in Development | Target Platform from the preference tree. Set the "Location" to point to the directory you created.
There isn't a standard that I know of for where 3rd part plugins should go. You can define an external extension location and store your party plugins/features there. This also allows you to reuse the plugins in multiple Eclipse installs if you wish.
You add an Extension location by going to
Ganymede onwards: Help->Software Updates->Available Software->Add Site->Local
Older versions: Help->Software Updates->Manage Configuration->Add Extension Location
For Ganymede onwards, the extension locations work a bit differently (IIRC the plugins are copied to the standard Eclipse install, which kind of defeats the point),there is however a new concept called dropins that you might find useful.