Eclipse Plugins

With Plugins (sometimes also called extensions), it is possible to provide additional functionality to Eclipse.

You should only install really necessary and well-known Plugins because there is no standardized quality assurance for them.

Pages

The following lists all pages of this category:

2015/03/13 17:08  
2010/08/16 15:21 Andreas Haerter
2010/10/19 18:28 Andreas Haerter
2010/10/19 18:39 Andreas Haerter
2010/10/19 19:21 Andreas Haerter
2010/10/19 18:50 Andreas Haerter
2010/10/12 00:42 Andreas Haerter
2010/09/06 16:22 Andreas Haerter

Installation

There are two ways of installing an Eclipse Plugin:

  1. The GUI way, Eclipse Updatemanager (recommended)
  2. Manual installation

The Eclipse Updatemanager needs write permissions to the Eclipse directory to be able to install Plugins. If Eclipse was installed into a read-only directory, execute it once with superuser privileges (*ix, e.g. using gksudo) or as admininistrator (MS Windows) to install new Plugins.

3.5 Galileo and above

To install a Plugin, start the needed Wizard by clicking “Help→Install New Software…“

Eclipse now needs to know which “Installation URL” it should use to retrieve the Plugin files and data via Internet. The so called “Installation URL” (sometimes also “Location”, “Installation Address” or “Installation Website”) is a repository for the Eclipse Updatemanager to retrieve and install the Plugins the repository provides.

Simply use the select box “Work with:” to choose the Installation URL. After choosing it, the Plugins and packages provided by the repository are listed below. Check the packages/Plugins your want to install. Make sure you checked “Contact all update sites during install to find required software” before clicking “Next”. Otherwise, Eclipse may not be able to resolve needed dependencies for you. The following Screenshot shows this exemplarily for the AnyEdit-Plugin:

However, if you want to install a new Plugin, you normally have to add its Installation URL(s)1) first. To add a new Installation URL, click on the “Add…” button on the right.

A new windows will appear. Enter the needed Data and click “OK”. The Installation URL should be selectable afterwards.

After clicking “Next”, follow the instructions of the wizard. And don't get confused if the following installation process varies from Plugin to Plugin (some may force you to accept a license etc.).

Manual Plugin installation

Some rare Plugins do not provide an Installation URL. You normally have to decompress an ZIP or comparable archive to install them:

  1. Download the archive.
  2. Follow the installation instructions of the Plugin author. You normally have to decompress the archive directly into the Eclipse directory (because most Plugins providing files for the plugins and the feature subdirectories). Examples for Unix-like systems:
    unzip ./cool-plugin-1.2.3.zip -d /your/path/to/eclipse/
    tar xzvf ./cool-plugin-1.2.3.tar.gz -d /your/path/to/eclipse/

If the Plugin is not available/working after your started Eclipse, check if you got read-permissions to all files and if all needed dependencies are installed (this is the main reason why you should prefer the Eclipse Updatemanager: it is able to resolve and install needed dependencies for you).

1)
You may need to add event multiple Installation URLs for some Plugins with third party dependencies, e.g. PHP Development Tools (PDT)
Print/export
QR Code
QR Code app:eclipse:plugin:start (generated for current page)
Languages
Translations of this page: