Sandarenu's Blog

Yesterday I downloaded the new version of Eclipse IDE; Eclipse Kepler.

So far the experience is great. It is much faster than Juno. Main problem I had with Juno is that it is damn slow even with the updates provided later by eclipse to fix the slowness issue. But Kepler seems to have fixed all those issues properly.

Most notable improvement for me so far is the improved Eclipse Marketplace. Now we can select multiple plugins once and do the installation together.  Previously we had to install plugins one-by-one. And also conflict resolution related to plugin installation had been improved. Previously when there is a conflict, eclipse only tell that installation cannot be completed, but now it says exactly which plugin causes the problem and gives option to continue installation without it.

One problem I had was that there is no official support for Scala-IDE for Kepler. But managed to find a scala-ide build from scala-ide google group. It was working fine, so until official version is available I'll be able servile with it.

• Labels:
• Eclipse
• Scala-Ide


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• Labels:
• Eclipse


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Few days back I came across this presentation at InfoQ site regarding "Eclipse, Mylyn and the TFI". I've seen the Mylyn view in the Eclipse and my idea about that was like some kind of a task management tool that comes with Eclipse IDE. After watching the vide my idea about Mylyn changed a lot and I was really exited about Mylyn and wanted to give it a try.  Mylyn is an open source product, there is a commercial version as well, which is called TaskTop. In task top there is a free version called "TaskTop Starter" which has some more features like Time Tracking.

Installing Mylyn and TaskTop

Mylyn comes by default with many of Eclipse editions. I was using Eclipse JEE Developer edition and it already had Mylyn. So most probably you also having it already. If you don't have Mylyn pug-in already installed in your Eclipse you can get it from Eclipse site. It has all the instruction you need to install it.

Once you install Mylyn you'll get a new view called "Task". If it is not already shown you can get it from Window -> Show View -> Other.

To install TaskTop starter edition follow the instructions given in TaskTop site. Before installing TaskTop you should do a complete update of your Eclipse. Otherwise you'll get some errors regarding incompatibilities.

Some Interesting Features of Mylyn/TaskTop

Mylyn is all about task focused programing. It allows you to do multitasking with ease. When you create a task all the editors you open are attached to that task. So when you move to another task you can see all the file which you had opened already there. You don't need to waist time on opening and closing editors when switching from one task to another.  Trust me this can improve your productivity many times. I personally experiences this during last tow days

I used mylyn.

You can also integrate bug reports from common bug tracking systems like bugzilla and Jira. Most interesting thing about this is that you can share how you fix the bug with other developers as well. Lett's say you had to open 5 files and do changes in order to fix the bug. When you mark the bug as Fixed you can also attach Mylyn context as well. So when other open it, mylyn will automatically open the files you have opened when you fixed that bug.

Another interesting thing is you can see how you have spent your time on various tasks you have performed during the day. This feature comes with the TaskTop Starter.

There are many more interesting things regarding Mylyn. This is only an enlightment article. If you are interested you should watch that InfoQ video.

• Labels:
• Eclipse
• Productivity
• Programming
• Tips and Tricks
• Utilities


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When we are writing programs it is important to keep track of important locations in the code. Using Bookmarks are the easiest way to do it. But in Eclipse that feature is some what hidden. By default there is no shortcut for that as well.

To add a Bookmark chose the code fragment you want to bookmark and from Edit menu select Add Bookmark. Once the bookmark is added there will be a small blue rectangle in the left hand side of the code window and a green rectangle in right had side of the code window. To view all the bookmarks that you added you have to bring in the Bookmarks view. Select Window > Show View > Other… from the main menu. Type "bookmark" in the filter box of the Show View Dialog box and select Bookmarks view.

To make the process of adding bookmarks easy you can create a shortcut key combination for it. To do that choose Window > Preferences from the main menu, which brings up the Preferences dialog. Then type in “key” in the filter box, which takes you to General>Keys. Then selects the Modify tab. Select “Edit” from the Category drop-down. Then choose “Add Bookmark” from the Name drop-down. Then click in the Key Sequence > Name text box. Then hold down the keys you want to use for your keyboard shortcut. I selected Alt+B for this. You can selects any unassigned key combination for this. Finally click Add.

Now you can use this shortcut to add bookmarks very easily. Cool isn't it?..............

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• Productivity
• Tips and Tricks


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Today while I was working on our "Financial Planing System" project I replaced one simple code fragment throughout the project. That ruined how the application works. Since I've changed nearly 20 source files correcting would have been a nightmare.

But fortunately, Eclipse is keeping track of the local changes done to source file. Because of that I've been able to replace the changes I did using that.

You can compare the changes you have done very easily.

This is a really cool feature to have, specially if you are not using source control system. Even with source control local history can be very useful.

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• Programming


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