Eclipsed

I’ve been experimenting with the JSDT to try some HTML5/CSS/JavaScript development.  In order to poke around the JSDT code to understand it better, I spent a bit of time figuring out how to get things checked out, built and running. The instructions on the JSDT site are a bit sparse, so I thought I would document what I did.

I’m not on the JSDT team, so this may not be exactly how they do it. But it works for me.

Downloading Dependencies:

First you will need to set up your PDE Target.

The WTP Downloads page is where to start.

Download the following:

• EMF 2.6
• GEF 3.6
• Eclipse Platform 3.6
• WTP 3.2.1
• XSD 2.6
• Eclipse test framework

I unzipped these into individual folders, someplace where you keep pristine PDE targets separate from your daily running Eclipse. For example, I unzipped GEF into c:/code/buildTargets/GEF3.6.

Setting up the Target

Now, we’ll combine all these into a single PDE Build Target.

• Under Preferences – Plugin Development – Target Platform, select Add:

Select “Start with Nothing” , then Next.

In the Locations Tab, we will add each of the installed components from our buildTargets folder.    Select Add – Directory – Next – then Browse the location.

(Note: when selecting, choose the eclipse folder under each target.)

Do this for each of the 6 downloads above.

Then give your target a meaningful name such as JSDT_Target.

Then click Finish.

In the Preferences dialog, change the active build target to the new “JSDT_Target” and hit OK.

Now your JSDT code– which we have not yet imported–  will compile against the expected target platform.

Resources

• Modular Mind has some great articles on PDE build targets.

Next: Checking out the code.