The Java developer's kit (JDK)

Tomcat and other server containers

Eclipse: the installation

Which package should I install?

The Eclipse Foundation and organization of contributing developers make a number of pre-established packages available for web application development, general Java development, C/C++ development, PHP, plug-in and many other uses as you can see on the download page. (Below, from left-to-right: IDE for Java EE Developers, IDE for Java Developers, IDE for C/C++ Developers, PHP Developers and RCP/Plug-in Developers; there are still others than those shown here.)

All of these packages can be configured, via the addition of plug-ins, to do everything any of the other packages can do. However, it can get complicated. Common wisdom holds that you should begin with the package that offers the most of what you need, then add in the remainder.

If you develop in Java, I suggest you install the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers because it provides for both Dynamic Web Projects for doing JEE (formerly called J2EE), Java Projects for doing plain Java work and still other project types. This package is basically the standard Java development package enhanced with the features of the Eclipse Web Tools Platform work.

Important note: There are components that belong formally to Eclipse and that ship with (one or more) Eclipse distributions. And, there are components that do not because they are "extra"—belonging to third parties like Google, BlackBerry, and still other concerns. Two examples of this are noted below (Android and BlackBerry).

Eclipse distribution details

Android development

BlackBerry development

Mixing development modes

Eclipse can be used to develop a lot of different applications and code written in many different languages beyond its original Java orientation including (but not limited to) C/C++, Fortran, JavaScript, PHP, Python, and many others.

Should you install Eclipse and load it up to do all of these at once?

The short answer is, "Yes, you can" and you start with the most complicated and comprehensive one, for example, JEE, then use Help -> Install New Software, change Work with to "--All Available Sites--" and look around for what you want.

I don't this; I hope I'm steering you to the best solution if you decide to do it. There may be good ways and better ways in how you set up a single, megalithic Eclipse, but I haven't ever done it.

Should you do this?

There are two camps, equally entrenched over this issue.

I belong to the camp that says, as long as I'm not trying to write an application that somehow mixes C/C++ code with Java, why would I want to encumber Eclipse with both Java/JEE and C/C++ at once? I'll just use separate Eclipse installations for each, totally separate undertaking.

I originally began doing this because installing the Android SDK once destabilized my Eclipse JEE and made it useless.

This said, the other camp points out that when you launch Eclipse and avoid using, e.g.: Eclipse CDT plug-ins while doing Java/JEE work, those plug-ins aren't loaded anyway and therefore do not weigh upon Eclipse (or destabilize it). I trust them completely in this because I haunt the same newsgroups as they and have complete confidence in their knowledge and abilities.

I just have no objection to sacrificing a few hundred megabytes on my system to two or three separate installations, in my case, JEE and Android (I don't use Eclipse for much else). I have had excellent experiences with Galileo and Helios which were rock-hard. I've never had a bad experience with Indigo. I don't use Juno yet though I've downloaded it and played with it. I tend to develop on mature (old) Eclipse installations until I find a reason to switch.

I keep my Android projects in one or more Android-only workspaces, so it's convenient not to have to switch workspaces every time I launch. Also, I can have both up simultaneously if I want to examine and/or debug my server code and my Android client code together.

You just need to think about what's important to you and, in the end, it's pretty arbitrary.

Launching Eclipse

As you might expect, you can set up a shortcut on Windows XP, pin the application to either the Start Menu or the Taskbar on Windows 7, or create a Launcher on Linux.

Here is a working eclipse.ini for Linux. I'm running Ubuntu Karmic:

Linux eclipse.ini

russ@ubuntu-karmic:~/dev/eclipse> cat eclipse.ini
-startup
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.0.201.R35x_v20090715.jar
--launcher.library
plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.gtk.linux.x86_1.0.200.v20090520
-product
org.eclipse.epp.package.jee.product
-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256m
-vm
/home/russ/dev/jdk1.6.0_18/bin/java
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-XX:MaxPermSize=256m
-Xms40m
-Xmx512m

Trouble launching Eclipse?

When Eclipse fails to launch, there is a very short list of problems to suspect.

Macintosh trouble

Linux launching problem

Miscellaneous Eclipse command-line information

Debugging Eclipse start-up

There's much you can do with the Eclipse command line. For example, if you're having trouble getting it up, you can invoke it from the command line and pass -debug to see what may be up. (Note: there is no actual $ECLIPSE_HOME needed, but its meaning is obvious and useful here.)

# cd $ECLIPSE_HOME
# eclipse -debug

Whereupon you'll get output such as...

!SESSION 2010-05-28 21:29:57.439
-----------------------------------------------
eclipse.buildId=I20100608-0911
java.version=1.6.0_20
java.vendor=Sun Microsystems Inc.
BootLoader constants: OS=win32, ARCH=x86, WS=win32, NL=en_AU
Framework arguments: -product org.eclipse.epp.package.java.product
Command-line arguments: -os win32 -ws win32 -arch x86 -product
org.eclipse.epp.package.java.product -data c:\temp\ws -debug

!ENTRY org.eclipse.osgi 4 0 2010-05-28 21:29:59.756
!MESSAGE Application error
!STACK 1
(Java exception trace starts here...)

You can specify the workspace for Eclipse to start up. Ordinarily, you can let Eclipse handle this, even defaulting the start-up workspace until you change it. Eclipse always (at least proposes) starts up on the last workspace that it worked in before shut-down. But, if you always want the same workspace at start-up no matter what you may have done the day before, you can specify it on the command line (so, in a script or Linux launcher).

# eclipse -data /home/russ/dev/workspace-x

Javadoc author

If you want Eclipse's automatically created Javadoc comments to fill in @author with a name different from your OS username, you'll need to add

-Duser.name=Name I. Want

...under the -vmargs option in eclipse.ini. For example, my Windows eclipse.ini is:

-vm
C:/Program Files (x86)/Java/jdk1.6.0_18/bin/javaw.exe
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-Xms40m
-Xmx512m
-Duser.name=Russell Bateman

Or, you can do this at launch from the command line (how I modify a launcher in Linux if I don't happen to edit eclipse.ini).

russ@ubuntu-karmic: ~/dev/eclipse> ./eclipse -vmargs -Duser.name="Russell Bateman"

Without doing this, (in my case) I would see near the top of my new Java class:

package com.etretatlogiciels.newclass;

/**
 * This is my new class.
 *
 * @author russ
 */
public class NewClass
{
    .
    .
    .

...instead of   @author Russell Bateman.

BIG CAVEAT: If you consume any plug-in from Eclipse that itself uses user.name for what it's really supposed to be (your username on the host computer), then this solution will break.

WORKAROUND: Another option is to edit the code template @author ${user} and change the value to a hard-coded name (@author Russell Bateman).

Where to go from here?

If you got here from one of my tutorials, just click back to return to your reading.

Appendix: Eclipse versioning

Here's a quick reference on Eclipse releases and names.

If you see "letters" in conjunction with a version number, this is what they mean:

• M means "milestone". As the Eclipse development process is incremental, developers add functionality with each milestone that adopters or end-users may test if they like prior to actual release. For example, 3.6 M7.
• RC stands for "release candidate". Only bugs are fixed in release candidates; no new features are added.
• SP stands for "service pack". After a release, subsequent formal updates to that release are issued in successive service packs whose identity is spelled out in the third numeral of the version, i.e.: 3.6.2 is Helios' second service pack or round two of bug fixes to the original Helios release.