Are there any great plugins out there for Eclipse, either free or otherwise?
Here's a list of plug-ins I use whenever I setup Eclipse for Java development (this list is updated for Indigo/3.7):
I previously recommended Eclipse Platform Extensions [12] but that doesn't work on Eclipse 3.4 and 3.5.
Update: I've removed commons4e [13] since Eclipse 3.5 now has toString method generation built in.
[1] http://andrei.gmxhome.de/anyedit/I did a blog post on that once: http://blog.vrist.dk/2008/04/03/eclipse-setup/
And the summary is:
The plugins I’ve current stablized on are:
mylyn, view your bug tracker within eclipse (bugzilla, trac, etc). When you are working on a bug you create a context which basically watches what you work on. With doing that you only see code that you need to see not your whole tree.
http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/
great video about mylyn
http://live.eclipse.org/node/573
tasktop, this plugin works with mylyn. Basically will link to your mail client, calendar, browser, and file system. There is a free version and a paid version ($99). What i like about the free version is it will tell you what bugs you worked on and how long. So you have pie charts showing what you did for the week and bar graphs for each day of the week.
http://www.tasktop.com
pdt (php plugin)
http://www.eclipse.org/pdt/
svn client (i think this is the better svn client for eclipse)
http://www.eclipse.org/subversive/
krugle (search open source repos for most languages)
http://opensearch.krugle.org/projects/
dbviewer, great plugin to work with any db.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/zigen/home/plugin/dbviewer/about_en.html
The FindBugs [1] plugin for Eclipse is good for static code analysis. It can be downloaded through the Eclipse update manager with this URL: http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse
Swing Explorer [2] is a very useful tool for debugging your swing applications, and it has a plugin for Eclipse. The plugin adds another type of app to the run configurations that instruments your code on startup and allows you to browse the swing object heirarchy as well as highlight things visually. You can add it with the Eclipse update manager with this URL: https://swingexplorer.dev.java.net/eclipse/site.xml
[1] http://findbugs.sourceforge.netWhen I code in Eclipse I also use the excellent
checkstyle
[1] plug-in, which is a modifiable code analyzer. That way you can always see if you abide by your (or the general) coding standards.
I also recommend the
metrics plug-in
[2] for Eclipse which calculates the complexity of your code.
It can handle:
Finally the code coverage plug-in [3] is really handy when you also (and you should!) unit test your code. This plug-in allows you to visualize which code paths are checked and which ones are not. (It can also do this check when you launch the project from the static main function of your project.)
[1] http://eclipse-cs.sourceforge.net/Can't forget the amazing http://projectlombok.org/!!
A group of us at school recently developed and submitted an entry to the Google Android Developer's Challenge. Throughout the course of our development, we used a Subversion repository to control revisions of our code and I found Subclipse [1] to be an excellent plugin for Eclipse. Very little command-line SVN usage was necessary... the plugin handled everything.
[1] http://subclipse.tigris.org/Google recently acquired Instantiations, who had a few nice Eclipse-based development tools, and made most of them available for free.
I have extensive experience with WindowBuilder Pro, and as far as Java GUI builders go, this is my favourite. I also played around with CodePro Analytix a bit, but didn't have time to delve into the depths of its impressive feature set.
[1] https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/tools/wbpro/index.htmlTry the Implementors plugin at http://eclipse-tools.sourceforge.net/implementors/.
If you work a lot with interfaces then you will absolutely love this plugin! It lets you easily open the implementation(s) of an interface or a method from the Java editor context menu.
The plugin is very well implemented, small and lightweight.
Eclipse update site at: http://eclipse-tools.sourceforge.net/updates/
From the website [1]
[1] http://eclipse-tools.sourceforge.net/implementors/The Implementors plugins add the possibility to jump to the implementation of of an interface. Alternatively, you can jump to the interface of an implementation.
The jumping to implementation/interface works for plain Java files. In addition, when associating EJB deployment descriptors with a project, the plugin is made aware of the connection between the EJB interfaces and the implementation class, something which is not specified in the implementation class itself.
Being a python developer, PyDev [1] is the one I use most extensively.
I also use and like P4WSAD [2] (for Perforce), Subclipse [3], and EclipseNSIS [4].
[1] http://pydev.sourceforge.net/anyedit moreunit checkstyle-cs jdepend quickrex propedit
The two plugins I find myself using again and again for Java development is QuickREx for regular expressions and the XPath-Developer for XPath, both from the same update site [1].
[1] http://www.bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/featuresFindbugs and Checkstyle are my favorites. Here is a desription how to install and use them: link text [1]
[1] http://www.vogella.de/articles/EclipseCodeAnalysis/article.htmlDoqua [1] is a pretty slick, unique "documentation plugin" - so developers seriously have no more excuses to write good documentation. :)
[1] http://www.inetsoftware.de/other-products/doquaIf you're using subversion for your vcs, then I recommend the subversive [1] plugin
[1] http://www.polarion.org/index.php?page=overview&project=subversiveESFTP - secure FTP plugin
I like the Easy Explorer plug-in [1]. It makes it easy to jump to the folder in the file system in Windows Explorer from the resource tree panel.
[1] http://eclipse-plugins.info/eclipse/plugin_details.jsp;jsessionid=6762C8DCB5B1E21A94B86D3858CE2AD7?id=192I'd recommend Bastian Bergerhoff [1]'s QuickREx and XPath-Developer although the other plugins available from this update site screw up key bindings for the Java Development Tools and should be avoided IMHO.
[1] http://www.bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/features/There's a new plug-in called nWire [1].
nWire brings an innovative approach to code exploration. The concept is to create a repository which holds all possible components (like classes, methods) and associations (like extensions, invocations), and provide easy tools for browsing, searching and visualizing that repository. The initial version supports Java static code analysis and I plan to expand it to popular frameworks (like Spring) and other programming languages.
It's much more than you get from Eclipse today:
It is currently in beta and it's available for download. Check it the demo on the nWire site [2].
[1] http://www.nwiresoftware.com/ContextMenuPlugin [1] makes the Windows Explorer context menu available when right-clicking on objects in navigator views, and on editor frames. It passes the clicked file or folder to the selected function.
This is especially valuable if you have useful Explorer extensions. I use this to invoke Tortoise CVS & SVN functions, to open a Command prompt in the corresponding directory, etc.
[1] http://www.geocities.com/richard_hoefter/ContextMenuPlugin/StartExplorer [1] can open files/folders in Explorer and cmd.exe, besides copying paths to the clipboard and other things I rarely use -- I use it to make Command windows all the time.
[1] http://startexplorer.sourceforge.net/There is a plugin for dveloping C++ ( CDT [1]), and one for developing Perl ( EPIC [2]).
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/Little but useful for developers Eclipse Full Screen [1]
[1] http://code.google.com/p/eclipse-fullscreen/I have found the multi clipboard plugin [1] very useful. The Aptana [2] plugin, and their RadRails plugin have also helped me with my Ruby on Rails work.
[1] http://bastian-bergerhoff.com/eclipse/features/web/MultiClipboard/toc.htmlJInto [1] is a very useful plugin for Eclipse if you often need to edit .properties files in multiple languages. It spares you a bunch of copy/paste.
[1] http://www.guh-software.de/jinto_en.htmlI can no longer live without the Extended VS Presentation [1] plugin and the GotoFile plugin [2] saves an awful lot of time for me.
[1] http://andrei.gmxhome.de/skins/index.htmlFor developing JSF 1.2, JSF 2.0, Struts, Seam, EJB, Hibernate, jBPM, ESB, web services, and portal applications faster than ever you can use Jboss Tools [1]
[1] http://www.jboss.org/toolsThere are some great recommendations here already. Let me just add a few to the list.
For more advise on Eclipse plugins and plugin management, check out http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/intro/plugins/eclipse
Try JAutoDoc [1] for Generating comments Automatically, it works good, you can change the comment templates also
[1] http://jautodoc.sourceforge.net/Qt Cross-Platform Application Framework [1]
Qt is a cross-platform application framework for desktop and embedded development. It includes an intuitive API and a rich C++ class library, integrated tools for GUI development and internationalization, and support for Java™ and C++ development
They have a plug-in for Eclipse that is free of charge.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qt_%28toolkit%29I like the C/C++ extension. It's in one of the standard extension repositories that comes with Eclipse, but I find it handy as I use Eclipse for all application development. (As a side note, I use Aptana for my web development, but I'm thinking about migrating that over to Eclipse proper.)
SQL Explorer is one of the most frequently used plug-in in my installation. It doesn't handle auotmatic DML and it's not possible to kill a query. But for what works it's just what I need.
Working with Visual Dataflex, the Visual DataFlex Tools for Eclipse [1] plugin is a must!
[1] http://resheim.no/vdfI like Javascript plugin. Extremely useful when we have lot of WebDev and AJAX related Javascript code.
Enerjy [1] to spot bugs before they happen. And it gives a score for you project and packages.
[1] http://www.enerjy.com/I'm always looking for stuff that does code visualization, like function graphs or anything. Please write me PM if you find something awesome ;)
Remote System Explorer (RSE) [1]
I use this pluging whenever I need to work with a remote system. Supports FTP, SFTP, SSH terminals, etc.
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/dsdp/tm/tutorial/If you want to develop GUIs based on AWT, SWT or Swing I recommend the VisualEditor [1]. It takes a few hours to get used to it but it's worth it. I usually develop about 90% of the GUI using this tools with a few clicks and the remaining 10% by manually modifying the generated source code.
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/vep/Dali persistence tools [1] for creating pojos/entity beans from tables and vice versa
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/webtools/dali/One can try my plugin which is useful in spring bases apps and had nice template mechanism. http://fast-code.sourceforge.net/
SpringSource Tool Suite (STS) [1] - it's much more powerful than Spring IDE (Spring IDE is subset of STS). You can download whole STS suite or install STS plugin to your Eclipse.
[1] http://www.springsource.com/developer/sts