Using Eclipse features

The OpenOffice.org Eclipse integration development uses some interesting features. The most important are detailed below: running a new Eclipse instance for debug sessions and update site mechanism for the plugins installation.

Tests and debug sessions

To debug and test during the development stage it is possible to launch a new Eclipse instance as a new application to debug. First, keep in mind, that there are often different problems in real installations tests. This kind of test is not sufficient to validate a release of the plugins. To run a new Eclipse instance select Run > Run As > Eclipse Application. The developed plugins running in this instance can be debugged like any other Java program in Eclipse. This is often useful to track errors.

Before running a new Eclipse instance, be sure to have updated the UnoTypesGetter.jar using the internals target of the org.openoffice.ide.eclipse.core/build/build.xml file. Running this target may fail if the javadoc binary is not contained in the system path or if the JAVA_HOME environment variable is not defined. This target should be run with the same arguments as the update site generation target (see next section).

Update site generation

In order to deliver or test the plugins in a normal Eclipse installation, it is necessary to generate an update site containing the plugins to install or update. Eclipse provides update site and features projects, but these should not be used for the OpenOffice.org Eclipse integration. To generate the update site use the build project as follow :

  • Open the Ant view

  • Add the org.openoffice.ide.eclipse.build/build.xml file to the Ant view

  • Right click on the added file and select the Run As > External Tools... menu

    • Create a new Ant build

    • Select the build file

    • Add -Dopenoffice.home=/path/to/you/ooo -Declipse.home=/path/to/your/eclipse in the arguments. Do not forget to place the path inside quotes on windows.

  • Run the ant build.

This script generates a site directory and ooeclipseintegration_site.zip file which are the update site in an uncompressed and compressed form. To generate a debug update site, just add the -Ddebug=true argument to the ant launch configuration : this is useful when testing the plugins on a fresh Eclipse installation.