New Eclipse. New Problems.
I got bored of my Eclipse Galileo for PHP. I no longer developed PHP and I used it to develop Java app, so I installed Java EE dev plugin and I thought it made the Galileo got rather bloated. I decided to download afresh Eclipse Helios for Java EE. I unzipped it and clicked the eclipse executable binary. Problems soon followed as I opened the projects I had previously worked on with my Eclipse Galileo.
- I no longer can connect to the SVN.
- I lost all of my run and debug configurations.
- Word completion does not work.
- I usually only needed to right click on a Java applet source code or Java code containing main class and choose run, and they ran, now I longer could do that.
I'll talk about all 4 points one by one.
It turns out that Eclipse out of the box does not have Subversion (which is Eclipse plugin for SVN) installed. This is because installing Subversion is a 2 steps process: First you need to install Subversion plugin, which is provided by Eclipse, and then you have to install a separate connector which is provided by Polarion and not included in Eclipse due to licensing issue.
When I first tried to install Subversion, I did a stupid thing. I added subversion.tigris.org into the update address and then I installed the plugin provided by that address. After being installed, the plugin could not connect to SVN. The correct thing to install Subversion is as follows:
- Check for Helios update. Locate the "Collaboration" option. Install "SVN Team provider".
- After it is installed, try to connect to SVN repository or do something else SVN related. You will then be prompted to install Subversion connector from Polarion. Choose the latest SVNKit instead of the JavaHL option.
- Done!
Now you have "Team" menu when you right click on any Java file.
But then on the 'Team" menu, I could not find "Update", "Synchronize" or "Commit" option as usual. It seemed that my newly installed Eclipse Helios did not recognize the SVN directories that were created by my previous Eclipse installation. I again did a stupid thing: I deleted all project on my disk and checked out all projects anew.
I could have saved a lot of time by clicking "Team" and then "Share" instead. That would make my new Eclipse recognize the old SVN directories.
After I checked out all projects, I ran into new problems. I could not manipulate the source files like usual. The word completion did not work. It turns out that newly checked out projects are not recognized by Eclipse as Java project, that is why word completions do not work. So I had to delete the projects from workspace (but not from disk!) and then reopened them as Java projects.
One more tidbit, my projects came with Ant build files. I ran the ant. Failed. I fixed my project setting. I ran the ant. Successful. I tried to right click on my source file containing main class and chose run as Java application. Failed. It turns out I had to compile the project using Eclipse built in compiler in order to enable me to do that. So I cleaned the project (Project -> Clean) and then I could right click and run it. By the way, the option "Build automatically" in the Project menu means that the build will be executed automatically right after you clean the project.