Found: Solution to Eclipse Plugin Failure

-
In a previous article, "Eclipse Annoyance - Failures with Plugin Development using Eclipse 3.1", I documented a problem with starting up a plugin project (any plugin project) with the first two release candidates of Eclipse 3.1. It turns out that moving from milestone 7 (M7) to the first release candidate (RC1) changed the internals a bit. One of the new features of Eclipse 3.1 is that when you update Eclipse you no longer blow away your settings. You workspace is now seperate from your Eclipse installation. For Windows and Linux your workspace by default is placed in your login or home area. Eclipse 3.1 keeps the metadata that defines everything in your environment separate from Eclipse proper itself and in this workspace. This has been great for all the milestones in Eclipse 3.1 I've tested, because it was so simple to just delete the older Eclipse installation and unpack (unzip) the new Eclipse. I could then start it up and carry on.

That was great as long as nothing critical changed. But something critical did change and the older metadata poisoned the newer Eclipse runtime environment, causing plugin startup to fail. I got a big clue to the problem when I installed the latest, Eclipse 3.1 RC3, on two other systems besides my notebook. One was Windows XP SP2, and the other was Fedora Core 4. Both installations allowed me to create and to immediately launch plugin projects. But when I upgraded to RC3 on my notebook, sure enough, it failed. That's when I decided to restart the notebook Eclipse and point it at a blank workspace. Bingo. I could create plugin projects and they would launch without failure. That meant that I would have to move all my projects over to the new workspace, but that turned out to be straightforward, and once added back into my project explorer, everything continued to work just as it had before.

With one notable exception. I have two Eclipse projects, one based on Openmap, and the other based on a complex SWT/JFace application I've been working on. Most of the information about a project is in the project directory. However, other critical information, specifically information needed to run the application, is in the metadata directory. When I trashed the original workspace, I lost my run settings for those applications as well. There is no reason why all information about a project shouldn't be in the project directory. That way, you can truly move projects around the file system, or even between Eclipse users, without losing any critical information. Those projects will have a better chance to work as intended.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 01, 2005

    Hi, have you posted that to some Eclipse newsgroup? Or have you found anything that would enable me to use my old workspace? I am experiencing about the same problem here (I am able to create and launch a new Hello World plugin but I am not able to launch my old plugins) and I am not too keen on manually migrating my workspace. Thanks and regards, Thomas

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousAugust 01, 2005

    I got it. Seems like the set of plugins you have to activate changed in the run configuration:

    In "Run... > Plug-ins > Choose Plug-ins and fragments to launch from the list" I activated all of them (some were not activated) and my plug ins launch again.

    HTH, Thomas.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BWMarch 14, 2007

    Hi, how did you put openmap inside eclipse? (and on what OS?)

    Thanks
    -Ben

    ReplyDelete
  4. BWMarch 14, 2007

    Hi, how did you combine Openmap and Eclipse?

    ReplyDelete
  5. BWMarch 14, 2007

    hi, how did you combine openmap and eclipse?

    ReplyDelete
  6. BillMarch 14, 2007

    No, I never ported OpenMap into Eclipse as a plugin. I was never satisfied with the results. Instead I've got it (mostly) working in NetBeans. I gave up with Eclipse. I'm just too stupid, I guess.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All comments are checked. Comment SPAM will be blocked and deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

A Decade Long Religious Con Job

-
Image
I rarely write inflammatory (what some might call trolling) titles to a post, but this building you see before you deserves it. I've been seeing this building next to I-4 just east of Altamonte/436 and Crane's Roost for nearly 12 years, and never knew who owned it. Today on a trip up to Lake Mary with my wife I saw it yet again. That's when I told her I wanted to stop by on the way back and poke around the property, and photograph any parts of it if I could. What I discovered was this still unfinished eighteen story (I counted) white elephant, overgrown with weeds and yet still under slow-motion construction. It looks impressive with its exterior glass curtain walls, but that impression is quickly lost when you see the unfinished lower stories and look inside to the unfinished interior spaces. A quick check via Google leads to an article written in 2010 by the Orlando Sentinel about the Majesty Tower. Based on what I read in the article it's owned by SuperChannel
Read more

Ten Reasons to Ignore Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux

-
There is a tradition amongst the hard-core Linux aficionados to extol Linux's various virtues as a list of 10 or more reasons to substitute (as in "dump") an existing Windows installation with Linux. There's no reason to point them all out; a simple Google search (" 10 reasons to use Linux ") will provide you with such lists stretching back through the years, as well as hours of entertainment. One very recent list caught my eye over the weekend, published by PCWorld. Their article, " Ten Reasons to Dump Windows and Use Linux ", seems to have hit a nerve with me. Normally I just ignore such journalistic pap, since the majority of it comes courtesy of one ill-informed blog or another (such as this one). But in this instance a "real" publication put some time and journalistic "credibility" into this list, which places it in front of a wider audience than the typical blog poist (again, such as this one). So let's consider al
Read more

Former Eclipse user re-evaluates Eclipse 3.3M5

-
Image
I've been using NetBeans for a while now, starting with version 4.2 in beta. One of NetBeans' key selling points (in my not-so-humble-opinion) is Java GUI building with Matisse . That feature continues to be quite powerful and unrivaled, especially for a free-as-in-beer IDE. I even wrote a lovely paean to the wonders of NetBeans and why I moved away away from Eclipse to NetBeans . Now, it looks like I may have to eat some of those tastefully written words. What you're looking at above is a complete Ruby on Rails project hosted and running within Eclipse 3.3 Milestone 5 on Windows XP. Milestone 5 was released this past Friday, February 9th. I installed it Saturday, and then went on a plugin hunt to fill out additional features and capabilities. Why did I decide to re-install Eclipse, especially a milestone? So that I could get a complete integrated development and test capability in one convenient package for Ruby on Rails. Like a lot of other folks I've been playing
Read more