Getting started » Preparing Eclipse

Setup guide to develop FeatureIDE and new extensions with eclipse.

1. Preparing Eclipse
2. Getting FeatureIDE sources
3. Run configuration

1. You do not need to configure Eclipse yourself. We have prepackaged versions for all operating systems available on our website. Download the latest version of "Eclipse with FeatureIDE, JDT, CDT, and AJDT". If you want to create your own version, or find out how we created these, check out the FeatureIDE Installation and Update wiki page.

2. Unzip eclipse into a folder where you have full permissions (it is recommended not to use the "program files" folder). If you did not get a prepackaged version, as recommended in step 1, make sure you have FeatureIDE, CDT, and AJDT installed before continuing.

3. Create shortcut to start eclipse with the folowing VM options:

   - vmargs -Duser.name="Name Surname"

   Alternatively, add the following line to eclipse.ini:

   -Duser.name=Name Surname

   Eclipse will automatically insert you name as author if you create a new Class

4. Start Eclipse and create a new workspace

   It is recommended to use a folder that is not indexed by Windows as this may cause interactions with git

1. Checkout the FeatureIDE repository
   • If you aim to change FeatureIDE code create a fork in advance
   • Open the view "Git Repositories" through Window -> Show View -> Others... -> Git -> Git Repositories
   • Click on "Clone a Git Repository" and then "Clone URI"
   • Use URI https://github.com/FeatureIDE/FeatureIDE or URI of your own fork
   • Choose a path for cloning the FeatureIDE repository
2. Configure Working Sets as top level elements in Package Explorer (for better overview on plug-ins and tests)
3. Create Working Sets for plug-ins and tests
4. Import the plug-ins from the subfolder "plugins"
   • Right click on the Working Set in Package Explorer
   • Import existing projects of your chosen path into workspace
   • Do not search for nested projects to not import
   • We recommend to import all plug-ins
5. Import the tests from the subfolder "tests" (analog to previous step)

1. Create a new run configuration to start Eclipse with FeatureIDE plug-ins

   1. Run > Run Configurations...
   • Double click on Eclipse Application

• Specify VM arguments at the "Arguments" page:

  -Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.7
  -Xmx1g
  -XX:MaxPermSize=256M (only required for Java 7 and lower)

• Enable tracing at the "Tracing" page

  1. select the check box "Enable tracing"
  • select all plug-ins starting with de.ovgu.featureide

• run the eclipse application a second eclipse will start with all FeatureIDE plug-ins from your workspace

• open the FeatureIDE perspective