Multiple Eclipse Profiles

Question

What is the easiest way to run multiple, completely separate Eclipse profiles?

I have several projects that use google appengine, some android projects and some standard Java projects. I would like to keep these three separate, as applications and android projects require advanced plugins that slow down Eclipse and interfere with other functions.

I tried to create a different workspace for everyone, but when I, for example. install the android plugin in one workspace, which is displayed in others. I believe this is due to the fact that it adds data to

$HOME/.eclipse

So what is the easiest / best way to run three really separate profiles?

Answer 1

Create 3 different eclipses. (different directories for each installation)

Answer 2

You can create 3 installations with a common package pool (all common shared plugins for eclipse). Then installing into each separate installation of eclipse allows you to split the plugins. ex if PROF=basicEclipse and TARGET=/an/absolute/path

 eclipse/eclipse \ -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director \ -noSplash -bundlepool $TARGET -shared $TARGET/p2 \ -destination $TARGET/$PROF \ -profile SDKProfile_$PROF \ -profileProperties org.eclipse.update.install.features=true \ -p2.os linux -p2.ws gtk -p2.arch x86_64 -roaming \ -repository http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/3.6 \ -installIUs org.eclipse.sdk.ide 

you can run this eclipse installation with $TARGET/basicEclipse/eclipse . Running with PROF=androidEclipse creates $ TARGET / andoidEclipse with executables, but it shares most of the common eclipse plugins (in the $ TARGET directory). I had to use Eclipse 3.7 M7 to run the supervisor app correctly, see https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=342156

However ... if you do not have enough disk space, it seems that just unzipping the installation 3 times will be an easier way to split your installation :-)

Answer 3

As Paul Webster already noted, if your Eclipse installation is read-only, Eclipse will store the plugin data in your home directory. The Eclipse Platform Guide refers to this concept as an installation area that can only be read. In one user installation, the installation area is combined with the Configuration area, which is the directory in which caching, configuration, and plug-in data are stored.

To enable multi-user installations, you can either create a general configuration that is similar to the base for other environments. Or you can create completely separate configuration areas that do not have common settings, but use the same installation area, and then save space on your hard drive.

Eclipse has no GUI to easily install these things. For the necessary command line switches, see the Eclipse Platform Guide .

I also created a Python script that allows you to implement and switch between completely separate configuration areas with a nice graphical interface. You can install it using pip install eclipseprofileselector or check the code from my github repository .

Answer 4

This IBM article details how to configure the location of the Eclipse extensions: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-ecl-manage/

Answer 5

Can you use different OS profiles each with its own workspace or just with different Eclipse settings? I'm sorry that I don’t know a better answer, but I personally get aggravated when Eclipse plugins work outside of their designated workspace like this.