[galileo] Manage Plug-ins in your Eclipse IDE

Part 3 of my Galileo Reviews around Target Platforms. An Overview of this blog series can be found here.

What is already installed into your IDE ?

In the last parts we installed the SDK and added some Plug-ins (XML and Mylyn) from the Galileo Software Site:

Galileo - http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo

Lets see what’s now installed into your IDE. You already know that you can do it this way:

Eclipse -> About Eclipse SDK (Installation Details)

if you want to install new Software from

Help -> Install new Software…

then there’s an easy way to get the same Installation Details:

Clicking on the Link “already installed” you get the same View about your Installation Details:

if you followed my Screenshots from last blog and selected the “Tasktop Gmail Connector”, then perhaps you now got an unwanted behavior:

after restart Eclipse asks for your Tasktop Account. If you don’t have an account you want to revert the Installation.

(Remember what a pain it could be in Ganymede to do this)

Undo Plug-in Installations from your IDE

Ever thought about something like an Undo of Installed Plug-ins ? Eclipse 3.5 Galileo has all what you want: you can uninstall or revert

In this case its only one single unit we want to remove so I choosed to use “Uninstall…“:

• Goto “Installed Software” and select “Tasktop Gmail Connector” (see screenshot above)
• Click on “Uninstall…“
• A View to confirm your selection appears: Click Finish
• The Uninstall process starts

Now you should restart. I tried some times after uninstalling Software to “Apply” this to my running IDE and crashed. But even with this crash nothing went wrong – I restarted Eclipse, the software was removed and all went well.

Really good job: P2 But it comes even better…

After restarting Eclipse open your Installation details again and your “Installed Software” tab should show the same as before but without the Tasktop Connector.

Now lets take a look at the tab “Installation History“

The top part of the View lists your configurations together with a timestamp.

If you select one configuration, then the bottom part of the View displays the content of this configuration – if “current installation” is selected, its the same as going to “Installed Software”.

Please go to your previous configurations and look at the content.

Imagine each Configuration like a snapshot – if you want to go back to a previous configuration simply select the one you like and click on “Revert” button at the bottom. Follow the process, restart eclipse and you’re done

You can even revert the uninstall we made above.

This is a really great new feature of P2 !

Now its easy to try things out and if there are problems go back to the last running configuration.

And it really works: I used it from Galileo M7 to final Galileo release many times.

Hint: sometimes while trying to Update Plug-ins you get a message about problems with Dependencies, esp. while working with Milestones. In all cases it helped to un-install the old version and then install the new one again.

Adding new Update Software Sites

Its a good idea to add all Update Sites you need under Preferences -> Install/Update -> Available Software Sites:

You can easy Enable / Disable, Test, Remove etc.

As with Ganymede you can get your Updates automatically or start manually using Help -> Check for Updates.

I know – for Newcomers its not so easy to find out where are the Software Update Sites needed. So I collected some:

some useful Software Sites for Eclipse 3.5 Galileo

1. Galileo: http://download.eclipse.org/releases/galileo (should be automatically installed)
2. Eclipse 3.5 Maintenance builds: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.5 (should be automatically installed)
3. Ed Merks blogs about the Galileo Plus Site: http://download.cloudsmith.com/galileoplus/ (Hibernate for Teneo or CDO included)
4. SWT Tools: http://www.eclipse.org/swt/updates/3.5
5. SWTDesigner 7.1: http://download.instantiations.com/D2RCP/continuous/latest/update/E-3.5/
6. PDE Graph Visualization: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/pde/incubator/visualization/site (more Info here)
7. AJDT: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/ajdt/35/dev/update (AspectJ Development Tools)
8. Mylyn Weekly: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/weekly/e3.4 (see also here)
9. Mylyn Weekly Extras: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/weekly/extras
10. Mylyn Weekly Incubator: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/mylyn/update/weekly/incubator

openArchitectureWare (oAW) Sites (after moving most of oAW under Eclipse umbrella)

1. Xtext releases: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/updates/releases/ (from Eclipse Textual Modeling Framework TMF)
2. Xtext milestones: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/updates/milestones/ (from TMF)
3. Xtext interim: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/tmf/updates/interim/ (from TMF)
4. Xtext Antlr: http://download.itemis.com/updates/milestones (there you can add the non-Eclipse-IP-approved Antlr Parser <–recommended)
5. MWE releases: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emft/updates/releases/ (Modeling Workflow from Eclipse Modeling Framework technology EMFT)
6. MWE milestones: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emft/updates/milestones/ (thru EMFT)
7. MWE interim: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emft/updates/interim/ (thru EMFT)
8. Xpand releases: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/m2t/updates/releases/ (thru Eclipse Model-to-Text M2T. Xpand includes Xtend and Check from oAW)
9. Xpand milestones: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/m2t/updates/milestones/(thru M2T)
10. Xpand interim: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/m2t/updates/interim/ (thru M2T)

remark: perhaps also needed: http://code.google.com/p/hybridlabs-beautifier/downloads/list (no updatesite, only download)

also first Sites arrived for Eclipse 3.6 (Helios):

1. Helios I-Builds: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.6-I-builds (yes, the story goes on
2. Helios N-builds: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.6-N-builds (the nightly builds for those who like living on the bleeding edge, which now is much easier then before because of P2 Uninstall of Plug-ins – and Revert of Configurations )
3. SWT Tools: http://www.eclipse.org/swt/updates/3.6

hints: The list above is from  2009-06-28. You’ll find (perhaps newer or updated) informations about Update Sites also under ekkes-corner -> eclipse -> update sites. If you try to open a Software Site URL from your browser and receive a 404 – dont be worry: if its a P2 site then it will work. To test the URL you should always use “Test Connection” from Preferenc Page. If there are Software Sites with a remark like “Only TP. Do not install into IDE” then you should really know what you’re doing if you install it into the IDE As always there are exceptions you’ll learn about next blogs.

Now you can Install, Uninstall, revert, Update Plug-ins of your IDE

The next blog went over to the Target Platform: at first step you’ll see “HowTo define a target Platform“