What is the "build manager" for scala in scala ide extensions for Eclipse?
In Eclipse in Settings -> Scala -> Compiler -> Build Manager, I can select "buildmanager". What is the difference between refined and sbt?
Also, is this some kind of method for integrating the sbt assembly file into the Eclipse environment?
ScalaIDE has two build managers, mainly the interfaces between the eclipse model and the scala compiler, they should do things like development, what resources need to be recompiled and how this affects the dependent code. Refined is an improved version of the original interface, and sbt is, well, sbt.
SBT is now the default, and I expect that at some point the subtle will leave.
Unfortunately, the build manager is very much under the hood. There is no real project eclipse project-> sbt yet. There is an eclipse plugin for sbt that allows you to create eclipse project files, but does not require close integration from an eclipse project into sbt, akin to IvyDE or m2e.
You can use sbt deliver-local to create an ivy dependency file and use IvyDE to update your route class containers - this is about as good as it is now.
I would not be surprised to see that this situation has improved - look at the roadmap .