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Installing And Configuring Eclipse Plugins

Overview​

The purpose of this tutorial is to install the Enactor Tools, which is an Eclipse plugin. Please ensure you have completed the pre-requisites before starting this tutorial.

note

The following guide has been written with Microsoft Windows as the base operating system. As a result, some references to application options and screenshots may differ if you use a different operating system.

What You Will Learn​

  • How to install the Enactor Tools
  • How to configure Eclipse to support Enactor development

Prerequisites​

  • Java
  • Eclipse IDE
  • MariaDB

See Required Software for details

Eclipse Application Configuration​

Required Changes​

Due to changes in the newer versions of the Java Virtual Machine that prevent JAXB from using reflection, some configuration changes to Eclipse itself are required.

Ensure that you have exited the Eclipse application.

Navigate to the following directory C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\eclipse\jee-2023-06\eclipse replacing [USER_NAME] with your Windows user account name or to the home directory of your eclipse installation

Select to edit the Eclipse.ini configuration file

Due to an Eclipse update with how the JVM and JAXB behave, the following arguments should be placed after the existing -vmwargs instruction

--add-opens=java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED

Due to an Eclipse update, the following ensures the Enactor Tools plugin does not attempt to access its preferences before they have been initialised, the existing argument value should be updated to false

-Dosgi.dataAreaRequiresExplicitInit=false
note

If you are using Ubuntu 22 or above and have issues with the Enactor Tools not working properly, navigate to /etc/gdm3/custom.conf and uncomment the below line WaylandEnable=false

Restart Eclipse for the changes to take effect.

Optional Changes​

Eclipse can be given more RAM if the host machine has the capacity.

To do this, update the values for the argument -Xms and -Xmx

-Xms512m
-Xmx4096m

Restart Eclipse for the changes to take effect.

Enactor Tools Plugin Installation​

Launch the Eclipse application, when prompted for a workspace enter the following path C:\Development

Launch Eclipse Development Dir Workspace

Click the Launch button

To install the Enactor Tools plugin, Open the Install New Software wizard by selecting the Help Menu → Install New Software

Select Install New Software

Click the Add... button.

Install New Software Dialoge

Enter the name Enactor Tools in the Name text box

Enter one of the following URLs in the Location text box;

Add Enactor Tools Repository Details

Click the Add button

Enter your Enactor Active Directory Credentials.

Enter Active Directory Credencials

Click the OK button

Select the Enactor Tools plugin entry and click the Next... button

Select All Enactor Tool Kit Plugins

Complete the installation and allow Eclipse to restart.

note

  • Dismiss any errors/warnings regarding the Enactor Tools licence.

  • If there are any problems connecting to the Enactor Tools site over HTTP using Eclipse, it is possible to download a zip file of the update site from https://dev.enactor.co.uk/tools/ and manually add it to Eclipse from your local machine. For instructions on manually installing an Eclipse plugin, follow the instructions here.