Virginia Tech Eclipse Updating

Eclipse version included: 3.4 (Ganymede)

Latest VT CS Feature version: 8/23/2008

VT CS Feature

Via Eclipse's update manager, install our feature from the following site:

http://web-cat.cs.vt.edu/eclipse/

If you have previously installed an earlier version of our feature, be sure to select and install the latest release.

First-time Users

If you've never used our feature before and want to add it to an existing Eclipse installation, here is how:

  1. Make sure you are using Eclipse 3.3. If you are not, go to the Eclipse downloads site and download Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) for your operating system.

  2. Within Eclipse, go to Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install...

  3. Choose "Search for new features to install" and click Next.

  4. Add an entry for our "VT CS Eclipse Update Site":

    1. Click on "New Remote site..."
    2. Enter "Web-CAT Eclipse Update Site" as the name.
    3. Enter http://web-cat.cs.vt.edu/eclipse/ as the URL.
    4. Click OK.
  5. Place a check mark next to the Web-CAT Eclipse Update Site and click Next.

  6. Select the latest VT CS student feature version and follow the rest of the wizard pages to complete the installation.

Current Users Who Want to Upgrade

If you haven't used Eclipse's update features before, here is how:

  1. Within Eclipse, go to Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install...

  2. Choose "Search for updates of the currently installed features" and click Next.

  3. If any updates for Eclipse are available, you should perform them first. If you find that it takes too long to update Eclipse from the main eclipse.org update site (which is very busy), then feel free to cancel and to download our completely configured bundle instead. After doing this, restart Eclipse and go back to Help -> Software Updates -> Find and Install..., then choose "Search for updates of the currently installed features" again.

  4. Place a check in front of the update for the latest version of our VT CS student feature and follow the rest of the wizard pages to complete the installation.

If these steps do not work for you, then follow the update instructions for first-time users above instead.

After you have installed the latest version of our feature, make sure to complete the following steps:

  1. Go to Window->Preferences.

  2. Expand the Workbench selection in the left pane of the dialog and then click on Perspectives.

  3. Click on "VT CS C/C++" under avaliable perspectives, and then click the "Reset" button. This will ensure that your C/C++ perspective is in sync with the latest version of the feature.

VT CS Custom Settings

Pre-configured Eclipse Workspace (latest version: 8/22/2007)

Many general-purpose workbench settings are not included in the feature you can install above. Instead, they are provided here in the form of a zip file: vteclipse-workspace-20070822.zip.

Download this file and unzip it inside your Eclipse workspace directory. If you accepted the default workspace location when you first ran Eclipse, then you can find it in the following location depending on your operating system:

If you chose a different location for your workspace, then unzip this file there.

These workspace settings will overwrite the default settings for many aspects of Eclipse with our custom settings and will also install rule sets that we use for Checkstyle and PMD.

Shared Lab Installations

If you are trying to build a shared installation where one copy of Eclipse is used by many machines (say, in a lab setting), be sure to read the Helpful Tips section of the full bundle installation instructions.

Importing Old Projects into a New Workspace

If you have upgraded to a fresh install of Eclipse, you may wish to import the projects from your previous workspace into the new one. This can be done as follows:

  1. Eclipse will not copy the projects into the new workspace for you, so first you should copy the project directories from the old workspace into the new workspace folder.
  2. In Eclipse, choose Import... from the File menu.
  3. Select Existing Projects into Workspace and click Next.
  4. Make sure that Select root directory is checked, then click Browse and navigate to the location of the new workspace (that is, the workspace into which you wish to import your projects).
  5. The list will be populated by any projects found in that workspace folder. Make sure that they are all checked and click Finish.