Is it possible to switch workspaces in Eclipse without relaunching the application?
I want to group projects with their file transfer settings, and switch between them without having to reload the application. PHPed has similar behavior.
I don't know if workspaces is the correct term with Eclipse. My setup is to use a seperate workspace for each site I'm working on, so I can have different projects for different servers like development or production. Also I like breaking sites down into different projects to allow for easier global searching. And in PHPed the startup lags when there are a ton files in each project which I do not know if it's the case with eclipse.
One approach in Eclipse is to put everything in one workspace and to hide the projects you are not working with at any one time.
Note that in Eclipse, a project does not have to be nested within a workspace, and one project can be part of more than one workspace.
You can switch workspace in Eclipse from File ---> Switch Workspace :
However this function will merely auto relaunch eclipse with the specified workspace already set, so it is like close eclipse and restart with the new workspace but a little bit quicker.
However you can use different WorkingSet instead of different workspace in Eclipse to avoid to relaunch Eclipse every time that you need to switch project . Take a look at this great tutorial to understand better how to use Workingset in place of workspace in your situation.
Related
I would like to use Eclipse and Spring Tool Suite at the same time using the same workspace.
Is there a way to do that?
PS: I've tried deleting .lock file in .metadata directory. But after I open Eclipse again, it's regenerated.
Thanks in advance!
No, it is not possible. The workspace stores several piece of information that both IDEs require (e.g. the Eclipse file system model that stores the list of all projects).
There are two things you could do (if you really require to work with both components):
Install every plug-in of one of your IDEs into the other (presumably it would be easier to install your Eclipse plug-ins into STS, but it very much depends on what you have installed). Then, if you need, you can open two windows (Window / New Window from the main menu), and then manage your stuff as needed.
Maintain two installations with two different workspaces, that share a set of projects stored outside the workspace. However, I would not recommend this approach because
You have to refresh the projects in the other workspace (where you were not editing)
The automatic builders registered in both workspaces would execute much often, and even worse, they could be conflicting with each other.
If you only need to work with the same set of versioned projects in the Eclipse instances, then maybe it would be a better idea to create a Team Project Set of your projects, and check them out into both workspaces, and share your changes through the version control system.
I have couple of different OSs installed. When I try to start eclipse in another OS eclipse starts complaining about workspace being used by 'another eclipse instance'. In case you don't know eclipse uses .lock files for that.
How to fix this?
I see a couple of possible ways to deal with this problem:
Disable .lock file check (It can cause some problems if opening workspace in 2 eclipses at the same time)
To make an empty 'workspace' just to make eclipse happy about all that settings and .metadata and .locks and keep projects elsewhere.
Removing .lock file every time I boot another OS. But what if I'll make a new workspace?
Is there a standard (or just better) solution of this problem?
If you exited Eclipse cleanly, then it should not complain about the Workspace being used.
Or do you want to access a Workspace with multiple Eclipses simultaneously?
UPDATE: Anyway I did this on a Mac, using the same Workspace on a FAT32 partition from OSX, Ubuntu and Windows, and I didn't encounter many problems. Of course remember to set the file encoding and line termination setting project or Workspace wide!
Eclipse workspaces are not designed or intended to be shared across different machines (nor across different operating systems). Trying to do so is certain to cause headaches and possibly even corruption of the workspace. There are things like absolute file paths (and other artifacts) embedded into workspaces that simply are not portable.
The better approach is to locate the projects elsewhere in the file system outside of the workspace; that way you can have multiple workspaces "contain" the project(s). Creating such a project is easy from the project creation wizards (a checkbox labeled like "Use default location" that needs to be un-checked, and an accompanying field that is filled in with the desired files system location). From another workspace, use File > Import > Existing Project Into Workspace to get the project in.
I've been told that an Eclipse workspace is the equivalent of a Visual Studio solution. But I've also been told that people commonly use a single workspace for all their work. Are these apparently conflicting statements correct? If yes, how do we then create and maintain the equivalent of multiple VS solutions in Eclipse?
Secondly, in the case of VS, I check in my solution (.sln) files, too, into source control. Correspondingly, should I or should I not check in the Eclipse workspace's .metadata folder?
I don't think, the Eclipse workspace is equivalent to the VS solution. An Eclipse workspace stores a lot of meta-information about projects, their physical location (possibly in or outside of the workspace folder), etc., and even workbench settings. It is not a good idea to upload this information into source control, as it is possible that other developer uses other physical locations for the projects, etc.
There is a similar concept in Eclipse to the solutions (similar, not equivalent): Project sets. It is only a GUI option to group your projects into sets. These sets cannot be executed together, and is only visible in the Project navigator.
Another way is to create multiple workspace folders, and you can use them as an alternative to solutions. The drawback of this approach is, that if you customize the IDE (e.g. by using Preferences, or by defining source control locations), these customizations have to be made in every workspace. This issue can be handled using the Workspace Mechanic tool (I haven't tried it, but it can migrate these settings).
The main reason why it is better FOR ME to have a separate workspace for a single project is performance and lucidity. With many projects within one workspace, you'd have to close the other ones because of shared classpaths for editor assistance. Editor uses classpaths of all projects for content assist, class hierarchy lookup etc.
Eclipse anticipates that the open projects are related. And when using project managers like Maven, one maven project is usually divided into many little eclipse projects. It's simply a best practice to have a separate workspace for a project. Second reason is, that usually you'd need to import another related project to see how things are done and it would be terrible mess then having it all in one workspace.
You definitely shouldn't commit the .metadata folder into source control. You commit only the projects inside. Because you and others then will check out the project only into their own workspace. But it is a question whether you should commit the .project file, because it's personalized and eclipse version specific and things like project nature (java, spring, maven nature etc.) can anybody set up by himself. .classpath files in the project should be committed to the source control, because they specify classpaths, it would be very time consuming setting it up again.
You can either group your projects in different workspace or in a particular workspace. Non can be harmful once you manage your settings properly.
In eclipse you can create a new directory for a sub-project under the root project and add to the build path like so:
I've discovered a curious thing on my Mac. At some point I apparently created two different Eclipse workspaces, one in /Users/username/workspace and the other in /Users/username/Documents/workspace (this may have happened as a result of some troubleshooting a while ago). I never knew until now that anything was amiss because the contents of both workspace folders are visible in the Eclipse Package Explorer.
I only just noticed because I'm trying to use Mercurial from the command line and couldn't find the project folder to create a repository. After some cursing I found the other workspace. The other strange thing is that from Eclipse's perspective, projects from both workspaces appear to be housed in /Users/username/Documents/workspace, even though some projects are only in /Users/username/workspace.
I believe the problem itself is easily solved (import things from one workspace into the other) but I want to understand why it is happening, and haven't been able to find anything about it elsewhere. My suspicion is that this is being caused by metadata that is telling Eclipse about the workspaces in both locations, and / or some Mac file system magic. However, I'm not sure where to start looking. Where I should begin? What might be causing this?
First, I personally prefer Eclipse to present me with a combo-box allowing me to select the workspace to be opened. You can set it in the preferences, under General -> Startup and Shutdown -> Workspace.
If you prefer not to be asked, you can specify the workspace explicitly in the eclipse.ini file (inside the Eclipse.app package) by using the -data switch (more about Eclipse.ini: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse.ini#Mac_OS_X_Example, all the switch options are in the Eclipse help).
Projects are not required to be inside the workspace. I like storing my work outside the workspace, since I usually share projects between workspaces. When creating a project, you can specify a location which is different than the default location. You can see the location of the project by right clicking it in the Project Explorer and selecting Properties.
I enjoy using NetBeans, especially for development with Maven, however, I've found recently that I've been working with three different branches of the same code base in different parts of the development cycle.
One of the things that Eclipse can do is separate the projects into different workspaces, so I can simply start Eclipse with the workspace containing my Maven projects in the production patch branch or the trunk depending upon what I need to be working on.
I'd love to accomplish this in NetBeans, but haven't found a way to do so. Any ideas?
I am using Mac OS with version 6.7.1.
There is the option of project group.
In File > Project group.
In here you can create a project group based on a folder location, so any projects underneath this folder will be considered within this project group.
When switching between project groups only projects within are displayed, and it maintains the current status of opened files, etc.
Switching between project groups doesn't require closing the IDE.
Given those options I believe this would be equivalent to the workspace switching in Eclipse.
I've found two things:
First there is a "similar" feature. It involves using the userdir switch on the command line. The downside being you would need to restart your IDE rather than switching while open. I think I can live with that for the time being. I found the technique here for Windows:
Create a shortcut on your desktop to the Netbeans executable: C:\Program Files\NetBeans x.x\bin\netbeans.exe
Right-click on the shortcut and click "Properties".
In the "Target" textbox, add the extra parameter to the very end: --userdir C:\path\to\new_workspace
Click "OK" to exit the Properties window and double click the shortcut. Netbeans will launch and create/load the workspace at that location
Secondly, someone has submitted a feature to allow for workspace switching (or in this case userdir switching) from the IDE itself. Perhaps this will be rolled into 7.0.
Well Netbeans has a group so you can create a group of projects which you want to say put in a eclipse workspace otherwise.
So when you switch a group it's like switching workpsace in eclipse
I know, that this question is old, but I found it on google, while I was searching for a tool like the following:
http://plugins.netbeans.org/plugin/20677/project-group-toolbar
With that plugin, you can load different projects in your projects overview.
So you can have two or more projects open and change to another "set" of projects.
Neither projects or project groups do not work in a similar way as an Eclipse workspace (yet) as far as I know. When switching workspaces in Eclipse, all the files opened will be closed and the ones in the new project will be opened. In this way, all projects work as one entity. The netbeans project/project groups do not work in that way. I hope there will be such a feature soon cause that really helps if you have many windows open and you switch between projects
I'm looking for solution and finally use Project Group solution, this feature has been improved and easy to use.
Userdir is a good solution at first (i tried to use it first), but "workspace switching" feature doesn't exists, so I have to use different shortcut for different workspace. Finally I used Project Group
NetBeans' equivalent is the "Project". In your project explorer you can right click on the current project and close it. Then go to File > Open Project and select a different branch. You will have to create a new project from each branch of your code.