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Stack OverflowDo you have any recommended plugins for Eclipse?
[+139] [51] Bryan Denny
[2008-08-05 20:51:11]
[ eclipse eclipse-plugin ]
[ http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2826/do-you-have-any-recommended-plugins-for-eclipse ] [DELETED]

Are there any great plugins out there for Eclipse, either free or otherwise?

Run-Jetty-Run : Running a web application in Eclipse should be as simple as ‘clicking run’. - Snehal Masne
[+92] [2008-08-16 21:36:22] Jason Gritman [ACCEPTED]

Here's a list of plug-ins I use whenever I setup Eclipse for Java development (this list is updated for Indigo/3.7):

  • Eclipse's WTP tools - if you install the Eclipse for Java EE developers these are already installed. This is what I've used as a base since 3.5 came out.
  • AnyEdit tools [1] - converts Tabs <-> Spaces whenever you save a file
  • eclemma [2] - code coverage
  • OpenExtern [3] - this gives you "Open Command Prompt Here" and "Open Explorer Here" options in your context menu
  • Spring IDE [4] if I'm working with the Spring Framework. You can also install eclemma, Subersive, Groovy support and Grails support from the Spring IDE dashboard.
  • Maven Eclipse Integration [5] if I'm working with Maven
  • Various plugins to work with whatever source control I'm using: EGit [6] for Git, Subversive [7] with SVNKit for SVN, Merclipse [8] for Mercurial, Rational's ClearCase plugin
  • Groovy Eclipse [9] if I'm working with Groovy
  • jadclipse [10] or JD-Eclipse [11] for decompiling class files

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/
[2] http://www.eclemma.org/
[3] http://code.google.com/p/openextern/
[4] http://download.springsource.com/release/STS/doc/STS-installation_instructions.pdf
[5] http://eclipse.org/m2e/
[6] http://eclipse.org/egit/
[7] http://www.eclipse.org/subversive/
[8] http://goldenhammers.com/merclipse/
[9] http://groovy.codehaus.org/Eclipse+Plugin
[10] http://sourceforge.net/projects/jadclipse/
[11] http://jd.benow.ca/
[12] http://opensource.trajano.net/
[13] http://wiki.jiayun.org/Commons4E

I like JD eclipse better than jadclipse. jadclipse unfortunately seems to no longer be developed. - Jason Tholstrup
I also use JD eclipse, and I don't know how I got by before! =) - sandos
StartExplorer is a better replacement for OpenExtern. It has more options like copying the path, open with default application and the ability to define your own custom commands. - Ranhiru Cooray
thanks for openextern and startexplorer! very useful - arajashe
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[+40] [2008-08-30 18:13:00] svrist

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:

[1] http://m2eclipse.codehaus.org/
[2] http://pmd.sourceforge.net/integrations.html#eclip
[3] http://findbugs.sourceforge.net/manual/eclipse.html
[4] http://eclipse-cs.sourceforge.net/
[5] http://www.eclemma.org/
[6] http://springide.org/project/wiki/SpringideInstall

(5) +1 for Findbugs - Trick
does Checkstyle still insist on qualifying the arguments of a method as "final"? :) - John Donn
They did when I wrote this ;) - svrist
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[+22] [2008-08-30 18:00:23] Brendon-Van-Heyzen

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


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[+13] [2008-08-08 18:13:30] Joshua McKinnon

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.net
[2] https://swingexplorer.dev.java.net/

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[+12] [2008-08-30 19:01:21] sven

When 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:

  • McCabe's Cyclomatic Complexity
  • Efferent Couplings
  • Lack of Cohesion in Methods
  • Lines Of Code in Method
  • Number Of Fields
  • Number Of Levels
  • Number Of Locals In Scope
  • Number Of Parameters
  • Number Of Statements
  • Weighted Methods Per Class

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/
[2] http://eclipse-metrics.sourceforge.net/
[3] http://www.eclemma.org/index.html

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[+12] [2010-02-17 12:37:29] karlipoppins

Can't forget the amazing http://projectlombok.org/!!


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[+8] [2008-08-30 19:22:09] Dane

For XML editing, XMLBuddy [1] has been rock solid.

[1] http://www.xmlbuddy.com/

Yeah, XMLBuddy is cool. I don't understand why Eclipse has such a crappy XML editor out of the box. - Andy White
Ancient history people. The JEE version of new Eclipse version will finally get you a decent XML editor. - Eelco
(3) xmlbuddy.com is no longer available! - fastcodejava
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[+8] [2009-12-19 23:58:11] Joerg

UCDetector [1] to find unnecessary (dead) public java code.

[1] http://www.ucdetector.org/

I use this sometimes and it really helps, but beware the false positives - Christophe Roussy
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[+7] [2008-08-05 20:57:32] Justin Bennett

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/

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[+7] [2010-10-15 10:22:46] Zsolt Török

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.html
[2] https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/tools/wintester/html/index.html
[3] https://code.google.com/webtoolkit/tools/codepro/doc/index.html

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[+6] [2008-09-20 08:21:34] Panagiotis Korros

Try 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]

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.

[1] http://eclipse-tools.sourceforge.net/implementors/

The "go-to implementation" feature has been added to Eclipse as of Galileo RC2. - Casey Watson
(2) Position cursor on interface and press Ctrl+T - Eclipse will show list of classes implementing that interface. Position cursor on method declaration in interface and press the same Ctrl+T - Eclipse will show list of types implementing that method. No extra plugin needed. - Victor
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[+5] [2008-08-05 21:40:15] Jason Pratt

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/
[2] http://www.perforce.com/perforce/products/p4wsad.html
[3] http://subclipse.tigris.org/
[4] http://eclipsensis.sourceforge.net/index.shtml

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[+5] [2008-08-17 20:52:36] Rob Wilkerson

Another plugin that's handy for task management is Mylyn [1].

[1] http://www.eclipse.org/mylyn/

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[+5] [2008-09-01 21:44:56] ILL

anyedit moreunit checkstyle-cs jdepend quickrex propedit


+1 for moreunit - Brad Cupit
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[+5] [2008-12-16 10:39:20] innaM

Of course, for Perl coding you should try EPIC [1].

[1] http://www.epic-ide.org/

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[+5] [2009-03-25 13:33:20] Evan
  • Tomcat Launcher [1]: Start/stop tomcat from within eclipse.
  • OpenExtern [2] for opening file manager or cmdline prompt window (any OS).
  • viPlugin [3] because after fifteen years I can't use any other editor efficiently.
  • Jigloo [4] GUI builder (Swing and SWT).
[1] http://www.eclipsetotale.com/tomcatPlugin.html
[2] http://code.google.com/p/openextern/
[3] http://www.viplugin.com/
[4] http://www.cloudgarden.com/jigloo/

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[+4] [2008-09-05 12:03:38] jamesh

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/features

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[+4] [2008-09-16 06:30:49] Lars

Findbugs 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.html

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[+3] [2009-08-10 08:19:48] Epaga

Doqua [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/doqua

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[+2] [2008-08-05 20:55:42] Ryan Ahearn

If you're using subversion for your vcs, then I recommend the subversive [1] plugin

[1] http://www.polarion.org/index.php?page=overview&project=subversive

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[+2] [2008-08-05 20:59:40] omar

Subclipse [1] provides support for Subversion within Eclipse.

[1] http://subclipse.tigris.org/

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[+2] [2008-08-05 21:28:46] Brett Veenstra

ESFTP - secure FTP plugin


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[+2] [2008-08-22 17:32:23] Owen

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=192

If you're using Windows, that is... - m0skit0
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[+2] [2008-09-06 00:32:11] Rob Oxspring

I'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/

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[+2] [2008-11-19 16:13:27] zvikico

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:

  • All the information in one dynamic view
  • Quick search for everything, including methods and fields without opening a single dialog box
  • Visualize your architecture

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/
[2] http://www.nwiresoftware.com/

Zviki, do you use the JDT's internal facilities for all the analysis (invocations, hierarchy, etc.) or do you run your own stuff? - Uri
The current Java analysis implementation is based on JDT analysis. We will add support for more languages in the future. - zvikico
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[+2] [2008-12-15 22:21:51] Chris Noe

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/

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[+2] [2009-02-04 02:49:54] Ed Brannin

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/

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[+2] [2009-02-04 02:55:23] Frank

There is a plugin for dveloping C++ ( CDT [1]), and one for developing Perl ( EPIC [2]).

[1] http://www.eclipse.org/cdt/
[2] http://www.epic-ide.org/

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[+2] [2009-09-07 13:12:44] ukanth

Little but useful for developers Eclipse Full Screen [1]

[1] http://code.google.com/p/eclipse-fullscreen/

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[+2] [2009-12-08 09:24:28] baybora.oren

RESOURCE BUNDLE [1] plugin

alt text

[1] http://sourceforge.net/projects/eclipse-rbe/

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[+1] [2008-08-30 18:51:36] Craig

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.html
[2] http://www.aptana.com/

The free CLCL application for Windows gives you multi clipboard for the whole OS. JumpCut is a similar applicatoin for Mac. - Jason Gritman
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[+1] [2008-09-15 20:47:50] Sébastien D.

JInto [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.html

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[+1] [2008-12-16 10:10:08] innaM

I 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.html
[2] http://muermann.org/gotofile/

The GotoFile plugin functionality can be done natively with Ctrl-Shift-R - Ghosty
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[+1] [2009-02-04 04:05:24] akuhn

FontSizeButtons [1], one-click to change font size

[1] http://smallwiki.unibe.ch/fontsizebuttons/

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[+1] [2009-11-08 05:19:15] inger
  • Eclipse Marketplace Client [1] - for finding/installing other plugins, essential in the age of android/firefox/apple/etc.. markets
  • the (TPTP) killer profiler: YourKit [2]
  • source code management, advanced queries: Semmle [3]
  • I also think AnyEdit tools are great (eg. compare clipboard with selection for diffing 2 methods, convert tabs, export working sets, etc..), and anything this guy [4] is doing
  • just found this cool Emacs+ [5] plugin
  • Dynamic Working Sets plugin [6]: handy if you have lots of projects and you want automatically group them using name patterns, etc.
  • Mylyn: Helps keeping related stuff closely managed and its connectors, I'm using the one for Bugzilla, Redmine, Jenkins/Hudson [7] (this one is really promising: see build history in view, clicking on a test failure on server opens editor with related code) .
[1] http://www.eclipse.org/mpc/
[2] http://yourkit.com
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SemmleCode
[4] http://andrei.gmxhome.de/eclipse.html
[5] http://www.mulgasoft.com
[6] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1786563/how-to-find-eclipse-projects-folders-by-name/1786616#1786616
[7] http://tasktop.com/hudson/

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[+1] [2009-12-08 16:44:42] Maksim Areshkau

For 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/tools

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[+1] [2010-09-19 20:35:15] Glenn

There are some great recommendations here already. Let me just add a few to the list.

  • Check out ANTLR for embedding mini-language programming in your app.
  • UMLet is great for lightweight UML modeling. If you are a heavyweight modeler, then go with EMT.
  • PHPEclipse is cool if you are mostly into Java but just do a little PHP on the side. If you are a fulltime PHP coder, then go with PDT.
  • jBPM is pretty nice for workflow engineering.
  • No one here has mentioned Google yet. They have a pretty good plugin for GWT and GAE.
  • I am also a big fan of subclipse and m2eclipse.
  • Mylyn is great but not without a connector and a back end. Trac is pretty popular these days and very easy to install and set up.

For more advise on Eclipse plugins and plugin management, check out http://www.dynamicalsoftware.com/intro/plugins/eclipse


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[+1] [2011-07-12 07:17:31] chetan

Try JAutoDoc [1] for Generating comments Automatically, it works good, you can change the comment templates also

[1] http://jautodoc.sourceforge.net/

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[0] [2008-08-05 21:24:30] CodingWithoutComments

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%29

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[0] [2008-08-25 12:20:58] Thomas Owens

I 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.)


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[0] [2008-08-25 12:27:37] wvdschel

If you use Ruby, RDT [1] is a very nice addon.

[1] http://rubyeclipse.sourceforge.net/

It's glitchy, it's better to use NetBeans with Ruby plugin or Aptana studio in the form of plugin. - Lavir the Whiolet
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[0] [2008-10-10 17:34:22] John Nilsson

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.


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[0] [2008-12-16 08:34:26] Ola Eldøy

Working with Visual Dataflex, the Visual DataFlex Tools for Eclipse [1] plugin is a must!

[1] http://resheim.no/vdf

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[0] [2009-01-20 08:29:22] pramodc84

I like Javascript plugin. Extremely useful when we have lot of WebDev and AJAX related Javascript code.


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[0] [2009-08-27 14:06:36] Daniel Moura

Enerjy [1] to spot bugs before they happen. And it gives a score for you project and packages.

[1] http://www.enerjy.com/

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[0] [2010-04-21 13:57:34] wishi
  • Eclim is awesome if you're into vim: http://eclim.org/ - it simply adds a new perspective and lets you switch between vim or emacs and eclipse smoothly
  • http://www.sable.mcgill.ca/soot/ - soot. Is for analyzing JNI any byte-code stuff. Pretty slick.

I'm always looking for stuff that does code visualization, like function graphs or anything. Please write me PM if you find something awesome ;)


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[0] [2010-04-25 03:53:12] Frederic Crespo

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/

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[0] [2010-06-08 08:48:23] javalympics

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/

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[0] [2010-10-15 10:25:48] NimChimpsky

Dali persistence tools [1] for creating pojos/entity beans from tables and vice versa

[1] http://www.eclipse.org/webtools/dali/

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[0] [2010-11-16 03:38:11] fastcodejava

One can try my plugin which is useful in spring bases apps and had nice template mechanism. http://fast-code.sourceforge.net/


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[0] [2011-08-28 09:47:56] jirka.pinkas

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

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