I have just read this question:
Stop intellij opening projects on startup
Ideally, I would like to have 2 intellij icons on my desktop - one which opens the last project and one which doesn't.
In other words, I would like the flexibility of both functions.
Perhaps intellij has some command-line argument that specify which "mode" I desire on startup?
I'd rather not have to fire up an editor and edit the xml each time I start up IntelliJ.
File --> Settings --> Appearance '&' Behavior --> System Settings.
CLICK on System Settings, not a sub-tab, and uncheck the box that says "Reopen last project on startup."
As far as separate projects are concerned you could, perhaps, make a shortcut to the IML or intellij project file in it's respective directory to your desktop and use that. This way you could link as many projects as you'd like, though passing arguments to the intellij exe is also viable it may be a bit impractical. A plugin would most likely be best to automate that process, but I don't know the technicalities so take these tips with a few grains of salt.
EDIT: I also think it's worth mentioning that intellij's settings, as is the spirit of java, has pretty close to uniform and connected preferences accross platforms whether windows or linux or mac, but extending features have to be made compatable to the specific platform if it utilizes a native function (like passing parameters to an exe in windows or doing the same with an shell script in linux.)
While developing Nodeclipse, I found that some bugs don't arise immediately but after some time, when combination of updates, restarts happens.
Is plugin update or uninstall/install really clean?
I develop and use installing for update, then use newer version until I got time/idea to improve. However as said above I ran into situation when Eclipse behaves differently after the new feature have been used for several days.
Is there some information that must be read about plugin install life-cycle, that mentions some not so evident behavior.
UPDATE: Some problem were in Autumn 2013 when we were switching to tycho build. Also around that time Eclipse Kepler 4.3.1 was released.
No, they are not "clean". Moreover when you do uninstall, no files are deleted, Eclipse would just prevent plugin from loading on the startup.
If you really want to remove the plugin you need to
Uninstall it via UI
Delete the plugin files in the file system
Remove plugin settings from workspace or create a new one.
Here is some interesting info for you:
There is no mechanism within Eclipse to permanently and physically
uninstall a feature and its plug-ins. The process to physically and
permanently remove an undesirable feature and its plug-ins is a manual
process that should be done when Eclipse is not running. In order to
do, you will have to manually remove the files there associated with
the feature from the eclipse/features directory and its plug-ins from
the eclipse/plugins directory. Be very cautious as to which files you
delete, and always have a backup of your Eclipse directory. If you
remove the wrong files from these directories, you may have quite some
trouble restoring your Eclipse to a stable state. Therefore, unless
your hard disk storage capacity is extraordinarily limited, it is
recommended that you simply leave the physical files in place.
Note that when manually removing plugins as described above, it is
likely that some metadata will still cached by Eclipse. This can lead
to problems later on. Running Eclipse with the -clean option may help
with that, as it causes Eclipse to clean the cached metadata. See the
Running Eclipse help page for details about this option.
Source: http://wiki.eclipse.org/FAQ_How_do_I_remove_a_plug-in%3F
You cannot do this ideally, because the plugins designed for eclipse leave their temp access files even if they are uninstalled, to do so, you will have to follow the steps:
Uninstall the Plugin: You can use the Eclipse UI directly. Go to Help > About Eclipse > Installation Details, select the software you no longer want and click Uninstall.
Delete the Present temp Files in the System, make sure to re-check the dependencies(Note: Removing Dependent Plugins might cause Eclipse to stop Working).
Remove the plugins from the workspace, or in short you can re-configure a new workspace.
This would be removing the plugins, but removing its traces manually.
ref#Link
Whenever I run Eclipse, it suddenly deactivates some completions tags (but not all) with no reason. This happens always during, when I write some code. At the start of Eclipse, everything is okay but after a while this problem occurs. Every time I solve this by resetting the preferences and restarting Eclipse. But it takes too much time and annoys me.
Is there a special Hot-Key to (de)activate some completions tags?
I would bet on a plugin malfunction. Try to reinstall Eclipse from scratch without any custom plugins, and add only what you need, then add them one by one until you run into this problem.
Alternatively, open Eclipse->preferences->install/update->unintsall or update (link)->configuration->view error log and see if you get any exceptions on any plugins, if you identify something fishy, uninstall that plugin.
In my case the Eclipse Preferences named Type Filters (under Java | Appearance) seemed to cause that experience. We had excluded all common root package names (com., org., sun.), but also java. and javax.*. After deaktivating those entries in the "Filter list" Eclipse's Ctrl-Space again provides the missed proposals.
I am noticing a strange issue with Eclipse Indigo. It is Building Workspace again and again even though there is no change in the code!
In Progress bar it prints
Building Workspace 44%
..
Building Workspace 10%
..
Building Workspace 33%
Any idea what is going on here? For the time being I have unchecked the 'Build Automatically' flag.
I have tried the following trick couple of times and this seems to work more often than not:
Uncheck Build Automatically flag
Refresh all the projects in the workspace
Re-enable the automatic build after sometime by checking the Build Automatically flag
Note that as I mentioned earlier this is a trick and not a resolution. But, hope others facing these issues will find this helpful.
Yes, I have noticed that too and it can be rather annoying. I have reverted to manual compiling in Eclipse by switching auto-building off (under project).
Compiling manually is a bit old-school, but it works for me. I prefer to compile, package and test the code at the command line using maven.
(I'll probably get a downvote for this approach (i.e. not using integrated tools, etc.), but it works for me and it works well! At least I'm not using VIM for coding Java! :))
If you are using Windows 7, then the Windows indexing in some directories can cause automatic rebuilds in Eclipse: see Bug 342931 - Windows 7 Libraries trigger rebuilds.
Having dealt with yet another stupid eclipse problem, I want to try to get the lightest, most minimal Eclipse installation as possible.
To be clear, I use eclipse for two things:
Editing Java
Debugging Java
Everything else I do through Emacs/Zsh (editing JSP/XML/JS, file management, SVN check-in, etc). I have not found any aspect of working in Eclipse to do these tasks to be efficient or even reliable, so I do not want plug-ins that relate to it.
From the eclipse.org site, this is the lightest install of eclipse that they have, and I don't want any of those things (Bugzilla, Mylyn, CVS xml_ui), and have actually had problems with each of them even though I do not use them.
So what is the minimal build I can get that will:
Ignore SVN metadata
Includes the full-featured editor (intellisense and type-finding)
Includes the full-featured debugger (standard Eclipse/JDK)
Does not have any extra plug-ins, platforms, or "integrations" with other platforms, specifically, I don't want to deal with plug-ins relating to:
Maven, JSP Validation, Javascript editing or validation, CVS or SVN, Mylyn, Spring or Hibernate "natures", app servers like a bundled Tomcat/GlassFish/etc, J2EE tools, or anything of the like.
I do primarily Spring/Hibernate/web-mvc apps, and have never dealt with an Eclipse plug-in that handles any of it gracefully, I can work effectively with my own toolset, but Eclipse extensions do nothing but get in the way.
I have worked with plain eclipse up to Ganymede, MyEclipse (up to 7.5), and the latest version of Spring-SourceTools, and find that they are all saddled with buggy useless plug-ins (though the combination is always different).
Switching to NetBeans/Intellij is not an option, and my teammates work with SVN-controlled .class/.project files, so it pretty much has to be Eclipse.
Does anyone have any good advice on how I can save a few grey hairs?
You can download the empty Eclipse platform and then manually install the JDT tools.
Go to the The Eclipse Project Downloads page.
Choose the bundle you want, probably Latest Release.
On the download page of the chosen bundle:
Download Platform Runtime Binary
Download JDT Runtime Binary
Extract the Platform Runtime Binary archive file and run it (for example, by double clicking on eclipse.exe).
Install the JDT binary:
Click Help → Install New Software → Add... → Archive.
Choose the JDT zip file you downloaded.
Uncheck Group Items by category.
Select the Eclipse Java Development Tools.
Click next to install and restart Eclipse when prompted.
JDT from the Eclipse update site
You can also install JDT from the Eclipse update site, instead of downloading the binary.
To do this, do this following:
Skip downloading the JDT Runtime Binary, only download, extract and run the Platform Runtime Binary.
Go to the Install New Software, but instead of Archive chose the Eclipse download site.
Search and install Eclipse Java Development Tools.
The "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" version isn't the smallest one! Look for "Eclipse Classic" - it doesn't contain most of the things you mentioned. It's larger in download size only, because it comes with source code.
See this comparison: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/compare.php
You can use a thirdparty distribution builder like Yoxos and download just what you want.
A bit late to this party, but I asked myself the same question for a while, and while now I'm back to a more fully-fledged Eclipse installation, I used to to the following to streamline it a bit. Hope it helps.
What I Needed
Functionalities:
Java Support
Java + Java EE (XML) + Debug Perspectives
Pretty much it. There's a lot of other things I like to use in Eclipse, but I needed to keep it down to the skinniest possible because I was in a 3GB environment where I also needed to run other servers in parallel, so I couldn't afford much.
Resulting Perspectives:
Lightweight Java
Lightweight Browser (fairly tweaked for code reviews and code inspection - that one was actually heavier than the others)
Lightweight Debug
What I Did
Install Eclipse Java EE (install classic if not caring about the Java EE/XML bits)
disable hungry views
disable outline (when you need one, just do CTRL+O)
disable call and type hierarchies
disable decorators
disable menu entries (right-
disable toolbar items
even better: hide the toolbar
disable hovers and actions associated with that
disable spell-checking
disable XML validation
disable Mylyn
disable non-needed search forms in CTRL+H dialog (I usually actually only use the "File Search" mode, sometimes the "Java" one)
disable usage reporting
disable unnecessary plugins or features
disables perspectives and plugins loaded automatically on startup
restrict internal limits:
some views have a scope (enclosing class, project, working set, workspace...)
some views and UI elements have boundaries (console/loggers, highlighters, markers...)
tweak the eclipse.ini to:
-clean the workspace (slower, but I tend to prefer to do that)
use G1GC
reduce memory usage (I noticed that I can perfectly live with -xss128k and -xmx384 with G1, for instance. YMMV, of course, as always with JVM tuning.)
use a server VM (and point directly to the VM's DLL)
Also disable views you don't need in the "Debug" and "Code Browsing" perspectives.
Sorry, I had actually saved all of these as a set of 3 lightweight perspectives to re-import everytime on my new project, but I cannot get my hands on them at the moment. If I ever find then, I'll add a link to them here.
Instead of going for a ready package from Eclipse Downloads, from the same page go for the Eclipse Installer. Currently available for Mac, Windows & the beloved Linux. Launch the Installer which should update (or not if you are lucky enough :) ). Select "Eclipse Platform" which is the absolute minimum from this IDE, set your other installation preferences and install.
After the download/installation process, I'd suggest your head to Help->Install New Software and search for the Eclipse Marketplace (Yes, even that is not included in this package) just to make your life a bit easier.
Get as minimal an installation as you can, and then remove whatever is left that you don't want.
Longer answer:
I played around a bit. Here's how I experimented:
Extract a clean eclipse*.zip to two different directories; call it eclipse and eclipse-bak. We'll only modify eclipse.
Before starting it the first time, remove some of the features from the features folder. I got rid of org.eclipse.cvs, org.eclipse.epp.\*, ...mylyn\*, ...wst\*.
Start up Eclipse to a workspace. Create in that workspace a Java project, debugging configuration, etc. Stuff that you would want to do and that will complain if we remove the wrong thing. Open up the Error Log view.
Close Eclipse. Remove something (or a group of things) from the plugins folder.
Open Eclipse. Check the error log to see if something you care about couldn't load. If it did, add those things back from eclipse-bak/plugins. If not, close Eclipse and return to step 4 for a new set of plugins.
Using this I got my configuration to still be able to edit and debug Java files, but including only these plugins:
com.ibm.icu*
org.apache.*
org.eclipse.compare*
org.eclipse.core*
org.eclipse.debug*
org.eclipse.draw2d*
org.eclipse.ecf*
org.eclipse.epp.package.java*
org.eclipse.equinox*
org.eclipse.help*
org.eclipse.jdt*
org.eclipse.jface*
org.eclipse.ltk*
org.eclipse.osgi*
org.eclipse.platform*
org.eclipse.rcp*
org.eclipse.search*
org.eclipse.team.core
org.eclipse.team.ui
org.eclipse.text
org.eclipse.ui*
org.eclipse.update*
org.hamcrest*
org.sat4j*
Most of that is core stuff, but you might be able to trim it down further. Notably gone are Mylyn, the usage collector, EMF, CVS, WST, even JUnit (though I think you should keep JUnit).
I feel you man, when working with Eclipse, the application is constantly trying to help.
Ignoring workspace corruptions, I spend my development time fighting all the "helpful" things Eclipse does.
XML is not that hard to read, but it still confuses the shit out of me when I get the XML designer.
All it does for me is add an extra manual step to click on the source tab.
Every time a new version of eclipse comes out they redesign the front page and the distributions.
At which time a new quest starts for finding a way to debloat Eclipse again.
I have the same experience with extensions to Eclipse by third parties and avoid them if at all possible.
WTP has somewhat usefull stuff, but overall I prefer a basic java eclipse.
It is a good idea start with the Platform Runtime Binary and add JDT.
Manually extracting the JDT runtime doesn't seem to work for me these days, so it it better to use the update client.
You can use the marketplace client, but personally I have always found it rather annoying.
An alternative is to use the director. The director can install JDT without starting the GUI.
Here is a script that downloads eclipse Oxygen 4.7.3a and installs JDT unnattended:
#!/bin/sh
die() {
echo >&2 "$#"
exit 1
}
[ "$#" -eq 1 ] || die "exactly 1 argument required [INSTALL_DIR]"
[ -e "$1" ] && die "*warning* Aborting! location exists, eclipse already installed?"
INSTALL_DIR="$1"
TARBALL=eclipse-platform-4.7.3a-linux-gtk-x86_64.tar.gz
mkdir -p $INSTALL_DIR
if [ ! -f $TARBALL ]
then
wget http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/eclipse/eclipse/downloads/drops4/R-4.7.3a-201803300640/$TARBALL
fi
tar -v -xf "$TARBALL" -C "$INSTALL_DIR" --strip 1
echo "\nUsing director to install java development tools, this may take a while..."
$INSTALL_DIR/eclipse -noSplash -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director -repository http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/4.7 -installIUs org.eclipse.jdt.feature.group
Simply call the script with one argument, the directory you want Eclipse installed.
Running the script gives me an unpacked install of roughly 129MB, which is more than 100MB smaller than the default download (zipped).
That is not to say you would not be able to shrink it further, but it should rid you of most of the crap.
The executable will be cached for future executions of the script, but it will still be slow, since it needs to go online to download JDT.
Unfortunately, I do not know of a way to cache the plugin download in a local folder.
You could of course zip the created installation, but the script is easier to commit to git.
This script will only work for new users as long as the mirror stays up and will need some updates when a new version is released.
But I am sure most developers are savvy enough to update the script if need be.
If you only want to use Eclipse for editing / Debugging Java I would suggest using a plain Text editor. It seems an overkill to install Eclipse and not use most of its features.
A very popular choice is VIM. Also check out this SO link for tips in using VIM as a Java editor. You can also debug Java code with a command line debugger as mentioned in this SO link.
I have figured out how to get the lightest possible eclipse with minimal efforts(imo). For the reference this is what I want in my eclipse:
Java project with Maven support
JavaEE support(Servers)
Debugging of Java application
(Irrespective of these you can install any feature that comes with Eclipse IDE with minimal effort, just follow the guide below)
Here's how I get it:
Go to eclipse download packages (Here's the link)
Find MORE DOWNLOADS (right hand side) and go to Other builds (Here's the link)
Now go to any build you like (Usually Latest Downloads -> whatever the first Build Name. Also There is links for older versions and archive site)
Under Platform Runtime Binary you can download Eclipse Platform as per your OS and/or requirement.
Now extract the archive and run the eclipse
Go to Help -> Install New Software...
Using Work with you can install your desired plugins and tools which usually ships with bulky eclipse
In Work with drop down select the site(mostly first) similar like this 2022-03 - https://download.eclipse.org/releases/2022-03 here 2022-03 is my eclipse version you may see different depending your version.
Now you can select the group(s) or expand the group(s) and select the specific plugins which you need and also you can filter by name like maven, debug, server, marketplace client etc in filter text input just below the Work with drop-down menu.
Install plugins and enjoy your very own lightweight eclipse.
Visual Studio Code
Fast forward to 2019 and we now can use Visual Studio Code with Java plugins. They provide a plugin pack to get you started with lightweight debugger and auto complete. Other plugins include maven integration, dependency viewer and more.
Visual Studio Code is a new(ish) editor/mini-ide from Microsoft which runs on Win/Max/Linux and has plugins for many languages.
Tutorial for setup: https://blog.usejournal.com/visual-studio-code-for-java-the-ultimate-guide-2019-8de7d2b59902
Edit 2019-06-21: MS now has a dedicated installer for Java integration with VS Code, including Spring Boot support as well. While the Intelisense is not 100%, it's vastly improved and now my go-to Java editor for testing and trying new things. Announcing the Visual Studio Code Installer for Java