What is the difference between these things from an Eclipse installation?
plugins
features
dropins folder
What is the correct use of these folders?
I usually use dropins for sharing plugins amongst multiple Eclipse installations.
See this article for the dropins directory within an Eclipse.
you can use some different structures to place the plug-ins into the Dropins folder – I prefer to separate them by domain:
/dropins/exampleA/plugins/…
/dropins/exampleB/plugins/…
/dropins/exampleC/eclipse/features/…
/dropins/exampleC/eclipse/plugins/…
But I prefer to reference an external dropins folder through the eclipse.ini.
-Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory=C:/jv/eclipse/mydropins
The plugins/features directories in Eclipse are the default installation directories for plugin.
For more on the differences between features and plugins, see my SO answer:
you will copy features (declaration of a group of plugins) in the features directory
you will copy the actual plugins themselves in the plugins directory.
Within a dropin folder (either the one within eclipse or an external one), you will get back the same plugins/feature structure.
The dropins directory should be used to install a plugin manually. The typical process is that you download a plugin and extract that archive to the dropins directory.
The plugins directory on the other hand is reserved for Eclipse's updater. You should not mess with it manually. Eclipse will store all plugins you install using "Help"->"Software Updates" or "Help"->"Install new software" (depending on your Eclipse version).
Related
As mentioned in the title, when I build an Eclipse RCP Application, can I place some plug-ins in the dropins folder ?
Or I could only manually place some plug-ins in the dropins folder after the building is complete ?
The dropins folder is just a temporary location for plug-ins that the Eclipse p2 update system will look at to find new plug-ins to install in the main plugins folder. You can't put anything there during a build.
dropins is intended as a last resort way of installing new plugins - ideally new plug-ins should be installed using "Install New Software" from a properly built update site or repository so dependencies can be checked properly.
Note that if your RCP doesn't include the p2 update system none of this will work.
I run Eclipe Oxygen2 on several Ubuntu machines. First machine has several plugins -Sublipse and Darkest Dark theme. I decided to copy first project workspace to second machine. I'm too lazy to install plugins these project might require. Can I assume that copying whole workspace also copies all plugins?
The code for plugins are not in the workspace, they are in the Eclipse installation directory (or another location if the oomph installer is used).
Configuration for most plugins is in the workspace.
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.
how can i get the eclipse plugin folder absolute path through command line or Ant?
There isn't a singular eclipse plugins folder. There could be multiple installations of Eclipse on the system. Eclipse doesn't store anything globally that would enable one to find these installations. A typical Eclipse installation process is just unzipping a zip file.
I would recommend that you take Eclipse directory as a parameter to your script.
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.