Distributing the Eclipse Plugin with Dependencies

Question

I recently wrote an Eclipse plugin, and I'm trying to get some employees to install it for testing.

As far as I can tell, dropping the .jar to the dropins folder in Eclipse should be installed, but it doesn't seem to work on any Eclipse installation other than the one I developed. This seems to be a problem with uninstalled dependencies.

I thought the dropins folder should automatically calculate and install dependencies, but maybe I'm wrong. If so, how can I distribute it without separately installing each individual dependency?

Answer 1

I would recommend not using the dropins folder. This is unreliable, as you saw. Instead, I would recommend exporting your plugin as an update site.

So:

2. Create a function for your plugin. This is much simpler than it sounds. See the Lars Vogel Tutorial: http://www.vogella.de/articles/EclipseFeatureProject/article.html
3. File → Export ... → Deployment Features.
4. In the options section, select “Package as separate jar files ...” (see screenshot)
5. Change other things as needed
6. Done

Now you have an update site where you can encrypt or host a web server somewhere. Your colleagues can add this update site just like any other. To install, make sure that they also have all the dependencies available from other update sites, and that they have a "Contact all update sites ...".

The best part is that if you put your plugins on a web server somewhere and replace it with new versions, people will be able to transparently update.