Eclipse Ganymede - IDE and platform

2008 - june - 25

I started using Eclipse with version 2 as Java IDE.

Now (25th of june 2008) version 3.4 (Ganymede) will be ready to download.

Eclipse evolves over the years and now acts as a platform.

There are so many projects hosted at Eclipse.org - who knows all their names...

The Ganymede release counts 24 projects ready to download.

In my ERP project I'm using

• Eclipse as IDE
  
• Eclipse RCP - Rich Clients under windows and OSX
  
• BIRT - Reporting
  
• Eclipse Riena - Remote (Client/Server)
  
• Equinox - OSGI Plattform
  
• Eclipse Modeling - openArchitectureWare
  
• SWT / JFace / Eclipse Databinding - GUI
  
• Mylyn - Taskmanagement
  
• .....

Remark: Eclipse Riena is a new project and not part of Ganymede

Here are some of the news worth switching to Ganymede.

It's only a small part of all the new things making your daily work easier then before - wether you're using Eclipse as IDE, for Plugin - Development, with Mylyn, Birt or other projects ...

More comfort developing plugins (PDE)

Plugin Spy

tells you all you want to know from dialogs or windows.

Remark:
on my Mac under OSX I couldn't use the keystroke alt-Shift-F1 - after changing to alt-Shift-F13 it works.

Launch Configurations now can be exported to the local filesystem and also imported from there.

Remark:

I'm using variables in my launch configurations - so they are portable and I can easy change them between different projects exporting / importing to local files.

PDE Tools --> Convert Jars to Plugin-Projects...

In PDE now its possible to create a plugin - project from a single jar. This makes it easy to design a clear plugin structure without storing external jars inside of your bundles.

Attention: You should only create your own bundle if there doesn't exist one for this jar. Please search at first at OSGI or at SpringSource Enterprise Bundle Repository.

Java Editor

Breadcrumbs: the Java editor optionally shows a breadcrumb bar.

From this bar you can easy navigate through the path of your java file and tree structures to open other java files in the editor - a very fast and comfortable way to access other classes, interfaces, methods,... from your current context.

JavaDoc Hover
You know the situation: pointing with your mouse cursor over a declaration a hover shows you JavaDoc informations.

Wouldn't it be great to jump directly into the hover, scroll the text etc. ?

With Ganymede you can do it now !
Point your mouse a second inside the hover and you can jump in and scroll or even execute some actions from there. (Please watch the toolbar at the bottom)

For me this is one of the coolest things in Ganymede.


Better support for OSX

JREs: All installed JRE‘s will now be detected automagically.

Voice Over (Command-F5) is now supported from Eclipse. Maybe I'll need this later.

Drag‘n‘Drop support in trees now shows the insertionpoint more exactly then before under OSX.

Mac Cocoa Port of SWT is still under construction and not ready to use with Ganymede :-(
But there must be a reason to wait for first milestones of Eclipse 3.5 ;-)


this bog in german