The last time we upgraded to the very
newest major Eclipse version (3.0 from 2.2 I think it was),
we found that some of our essential plugins didn't work.
Actually, here's evidence
that even 3.3 and 3.2 are not plug-in compatible. So we've been adopting the policy of only upgrading
after some time. At this time (2009 April) the very newest
Eclipse release is Galileo, but tools we are starting to
use such as Atmel AVR32 Studio are based on Eclipse 3.4 (Ganymede).
And a new plugin we want to try won't work with Eclipse 3.3.
So, here we go - we have to migrate to 3.4. I wish there
were some way to easily migrate between Eclipse versions.
Maybe there is by now -- email the SystronixJava user group
if you know of a way.
Before diving in I'll try more research on this topic. Eclipse claims that
3.3 plugins should work with 3.4. But how to to migrate to
3.4 from 3.3 without essentially reinstalling all plugins
anew in 3.4 and manually copying over configurations? It's
not advisable to install a new version on top of an old (at
least the last time I tried this it was a mess). Here's an
Eclipse plug-in
migration guide, but that's not what we want.
- Zip up the current configuration, which by default is in C:\Documents
and Settings\{username}\workspace (this is not the location
that we use). This is a precaution in case you need
to go back to the currently installed version of Eclipse.
Note that this default workspace is where your Eclipse configurations
are stored (unless you use the -data parameter to tell Eclipse
where else to store the workspace data) regardless of where
you actually store your Eclipse projects (in our case, in
a virtual P: drive).
- Rename the current Eclipse folder from "eclipse" to something specific
such as "eclipse_3.2.1"
- Get the Eclipse SDK if you want the source and other options (150 MB) or just the JDT download (80 MB) for Java development
- Unzip the new Eclipse install into the default c:\eclipse folder.
- Start the new Eclipse, direct it to the old/current workspace. I've started using the -data parameter in the startup shortcut.
- With Ganymede we are trying Subversive instead of Subclipse.
- OK, but now I have no SVN repository browsing... Subversive has
a "migrate projects and settings" option under Help->Subversive.
But when I try that, I get an error eclipse.exe "The
ordinal 3873 could not be located in the DLL LIBEAY32.dll". Yuck.
This is why I dread upgrading!
- I need to install Subclipse before I can disconnect any Subclipse
projects and change to Subversive... there is a new
Subclipse 1.6 which might address some of my frustrations (like not
being able to easily force an update, and messy merges).
- OK, Subclipse is installed and seems to work. It has a different
menu and might obviate my interest in moving to something
new.
- OK, now Subversion repository exploring works, although
I had to recreate a SVN Repository View.
- But now I am still missing the C/C++ tools.
- OK, use Update Manager to look for new features in the Europa Discovery
Site. There are a ton, including C/C++ tools. So install
those. Restart Eclipse.
- Re-change the Window->Preferences->Ant Runtime Ant Home button to
point to my "real" Ant installation under C:\JavaSoft\apache-ant-1.6.5
instead of the one installed with Eclipse. This preserves
all my custom plugins too. One more good reason to do Ant
this way - Eclipse upgrades don't break Ant or any of it's
additions.
- Eclipse integration with 8-bit Atmel AVRs is still not
complete - but Atmel is intending to move to an Eclipse-based
solution. AVR32 already is based on Eclipse 3.4, but sadly
it's not a plugin - so you need a whole separate Eclipse
install just for AVR32 Studio.
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