How to update an Eclipse installed via Yoxos - eclipse

I downloaded and installed Eclipse using Yoxos a few months ago. Since then, several of the plugins I downloaded as part of the install have been updated. In particular, the App Engine sdk has gone through 4 or 5 point releases, and GWT went from 1.7 to 2.0. The yoxos "software updates" tool seems painfully unaware of these updates though. How do I update these plugins? Is it a matter of waiting until Yoxos updates their database of plugins?

Can you not update directly from Eclipse ?
Help -> Check for updates
That will normally check for Eclipse framework and plugin updates.

You can update from anywhere, Pulse, Eclipse. If you go to the Eclipse site download page you can see many different providers of updates. Just get their download links and go to Help -> Install Software and hit the add button to add them. Then it will pick up updates from any of these sites. All of the plugins have unique names and versions so it does not matter where you get them.

You can update via the Eclipse mechanisms as the others describe. Then you risk running into the compatibility problems all Eclipse users have that put together plug-ins from a number of update sites. The idea of a distribution like Yoxos is to have a defined state of plug-ins that are checked for compatibility; compare with Linux distributions.
In a distribution you don't always have the latest version of a software, but it works and it's comfortable getting updates.
On Jan 6, the Yoxos Distribution had the latest update that - among others - includes the updates you asked above.
yoxos.ondemand.com also has a feedback button on the right side, so you can get your answers directly from the developers instead of hoping that they find your question in unrelated 3rd party forums :-)

Related

Eclipse offline Extensions install in an almost completely closed environment (proxy)

Initial position:
Currently I'm at a customer's site who has completely locked up his system (VM), and through a proxy blocks nearly everything, including the connections to download the extensions of Eclipse.
In the Eclipse marketplace you can find the download links, but they are of no use to me. Since the proxy locks everything out.
If you use the download link, you will get to this page, which ONLY refers to the integration in Eclipse via the web. This is currently not possible for me!
A reference to the M2E version only leads to the page mentioned above.
https://www.eclipse.org/m2e/
The customer only allows Eclipse no other programs.
It is unbelievable ^^
Is there a way to install offline extensions in Eclipse like Visual Studio code?
What I need is a Maven/Java based version, including Jenkins integration.
I currently used a portable version of Eclipse from the points already described. Yes, the download of complete versions is possible and not blocked, just the integration of plugins and extensions.

Deleting every eclipse plugin in Galileo

My eclipse runs horribly slow because I have thousands of plugins installed on it. I spoke with another friend who uses eclipse but he has none. I feel like none of these are necessary and I didn't even install so many. I have thousands of plugins and I tried reinstaling eclipse but I need to find a way to remove every single eclipse plugin.
Attempting to delete a plugin manually takes up to 5 minutes per plugin, so it could take me months or years before actually deleting all of these by hand.
Is there a feature in eclipse to delete all the plugins? Also I'm using WINDOWS XP
First, you need to understand that virtually everything in Eclipse is a plugin. Eclipse has a very small core runtime (Equinox) that loads all features from plugins. You can't just "delete every plugin" as doing so would leave you with nothing.
Also, just because a plugin is installed does not mean that it is always loaded or taking up resources. Eclipse uses a "lazy loading" architecture that will only load a plugin when some feature that it provides is actually invoked. Some plugins are probably written poorly in such a way that they are loaded too aggressively, but that would be the rare exception. So, in general, having lots of plugins is not a problem for performance.
If you do have a plugin that you want to remove, you can not just delete it from the plugins folder - as you've seen that will screw up your Eclipse installation. Don't do that.
One way to manage the features that you have installed, including installing ones that are able to be uninstalled, is to open the About dialog, then click the Installation Details button. There you'll be presented with a list of features that have been installed; you can select a feature and if it's possible to uninstall it the Uninstall... button will be enabled.
Often it's one bad third-party plugin/feature (not something from eclipse.org) that causes an Eclipse installation to have problems; try to find what it might be by process of elimination (uninstall all third-party plugins that you might have installed since your Eclipse was fresh).
Finally, as a last resort, it is trivial to remove Eclipse completely (just delete it from your file system) and re-install it fresh.
Having said all that, performance problems are usually due to an underpowered machine. What kind of processort do you have? How much RAM does your system have available after Windows boots up? Have you specified memory settings in eclipse.ini?

How to update eclipse installation?

I am using Eclipse 3.6, and looking to update the installation to newer release, that is 3.7. Instead of downloading the whole package, can I just perform a update(distribution update)? Is there exists any way to easily achieve this?
I would not recommend that. Eclipse minor versions are more like major versions (updated once a year), so most (if not all) of the plugins are updated in the meantime. There are 2 aspects here:
The download time for all of the updated plugins may be higher than the download time for the whole bundle.
There is no guarantee that all of the plugins may be upgraded seamlessly. That means that your updated environment may not work well together.
One indication that helps is that each new eclipse release comes with new update sites. My rule of thumb is, that updates are possible with the same update site, but with a complete new version with a new update site, I always install the new release all together.
Start Eclipse; from the Help menu, choose "Check for Updates". It starts searching for updates - this may take a while, but when finished you can see a list of available updates for Eclipse (including any supported plugins that you installed). Select the update(s) you want to install and click "Next".

How do you manage your Eclipse installation?

How do you manage your Eclipse installation, i.e. the basic installation, plug-ins and workspace settings with regard to consistent updates (including major ones, 3.5 => 3.6) and usage on two or more computers (desktop + notebook).
My current setup is to basically managing the installation on several installations in parallel, i.e. manually add new plug-ins I installed on one to the other, and when I haven't used one in a long time to copy the whole directory from one location to the other.
For updates I usually run it about once a month to get the latest versions, major updates I do manually by downloading the basic distribution and re-installing all the plug-ins in the matching version for the new major Eclipse version.
However, this approach has some drawbacks:
time intensive
update inconsistencies (Update sites change location, update doesn't work because of some version inconsistency between plug-ins that requires a lot of manual fixing, etc) (this has gotten better with 3.5 but still bugs me)
no "global" update site, I manually have to manage several locations
I tried alternatives like Yoxos for configuration management but there plug-ins were missing and / or not that well tested together as I expected.
I took a look at Idea as an IDE, the one thing I really loved was the update management: centralized and 90% of the functionality I'd be using are provided as a core that is tested and updated as one.
Thus the question: How do you manage your Eclipse installations and deal with updates?
From my experience with other Eclipse users they have at least the same problem with updates, but I haven't heard of a solution yet.
I've heard good things from other developers about Google's Workspace Mechanic.
That's what they use inside Google to manage Eclipse environments across teams.
It was open sourced in May 2010, and you may find more information in the blog post.
Note that the Workspace Mechanic does not yet manage plug-in installations (see discussion thread): it remembers "plugin preferences", but installing the plug-in themselves is not yet supported.
I also met such inconvenience. I always need install similar development tools(such as Mylyn, SVN, CDT, Clearcase) in different eclipse instances on different hosts(Windows, Linux).
Update:
Eclipse has officially offered a feature to help migrating what you have installed since Eclipse Indigo.
And it also supports install existing plug-ins from another instance.
My strategy is as follows:
When a new Eclipse version comes out, I install it fresh and set up a fresh workspace. Then, I install all the minimal plugins I need manually, such as Subversion and M2Eclipse. Also, I export the preferences (e.g. code formatting) to an external file and reimport it in the new Eclipse installation.
I always import existing projects into the workspace. I can use my workspaces (or better, my SVN working copy) from multiple Eclipse versions if necessary.
I only occassionally install additional Eclipse plugins and try to move all other toolchain parts into the build environment (e.g. Hudson with several slaves, automated builds and release scripts, Sonar for code-quality reports etc.)
I try to minimize the complexity of the development setup on my local developer machine.
I only have one installations but I have multiple workspaces.
I synchronize the workspace setting by copying the content of <workspace_dir>/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings directory.
I also use the bookmarks to centralized to save the update-sites relevant for my work. This can act as a global update site. To import/export some bookmarks, go in Preferences -> Install/Update -> Available software sites. When a new Eclipse version comes out (once a year), I only have to install the plugins using the bookmarks.

Setting up Eclipse for Java and PHP

I have already installed Eclipse for Java development. I'd also like to install Plugins for PHP, CSS/HTML and Javascript, but all the sites that I've checked only offer a 'All in one' package, so I could either download an all-in-one Java package or an all-in-one PHP package, but not both at the same time.
How do I set up my existing installation to also support PHP files?
I use PHPEclipse which can be installed as a regular Eclipse software update
The PDT can also be installed as an update.
For HTML/CSS etc, the WTP can be installed in a similar fashion.
If you already have Eclipse installed, follow the instructions at PDT Installation to install the PDT (PHP Development Tools). This will include the Web Tools Project (WTP), which brings editors and tools for HTML and CSS.
This issue made me nuts 2. First i downloaded the PDT eclipse, which would not take google plugins or apache ant. Then I downloaded the Eclipse SDK to use java ant GWT and could not load php onto it.
If you ask me, this program sucks. I like the idea, however the updates hardly ever work, and it does not support multiple coding languages like it says it does. Also the web site is shocking as it gives you 100 options to download.
Coulnt the have just made the one platform and then provided links to the plugins ???
Correct me if i am wrong guys, but trying to get PHP and Java working in eclipse is torture. Ive been stuck for 3 days now, installing and uinstalling.
One final rant, the download speeds of the eclipse servers are below 10kb, and take about half a day to install one update.
My prob is, I have to use it as the project i am working was archived with Eclipse.
Did you follow the steps presented on this installation page? There is a From update site section in which they describe how to install it from the Software Updates menu.
I had this problem recently.
I started with the J2EE Ganymede setup and added the PDT tools (via Update) afterwards.
Then I added Subclipse afterwards.
G.
(I wish they wouldn't change the eclipse pages all the time...)
Look for "runtime" on the downloads page for PDT (http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/downloads/)
Why do you want JDT and PDT in one installation? I usually set up different installations for different things. It just so easy, since you don't really need to install anything. I have two setups for PDT and at least 5 for JDT.
Install Aptana Studio plugin. In my experience it is much better then either PHPEclipse or PDT. However, YMMV.