This repository contains a Powershell script that downloads a recent Eclipse release (currently 2018/12) and an LTS version of OpenJDK (currently 11.0.2), which is not subject to the licensing issues that surround Oracle Java releases beyond January 2019. For these downloads, those folders with an Eclipse installation are created, one for exam environments and one for a regular environment. The script then copies the configuration files preconfigured in the src dir to patch the two packages.
Download all the files in this git repository and execute the script create-packages.ps1 using Microsoft Powershell. After this is done, the installation for exams can be found in the directory package-exam and
the regular package in package-regular.
Note that the regular package should be executed once before deployment to end users. This is to make sure it can download additional Eclipse plugins on the first execution. If the installation.setup script defines such plugins as required, Eclipse will ask the user if it is allowed to install these plugins upon the first launch of Eclipse.
The distinct features of the exam package are:
- The default workspace folder is
@{user.home}\Desktop\eclipse-workspacerather than@{user.home}\eclipse-workspace. It should be checked whether this is actually appropriate in an exam environment. - No workspace selection dialog is trigger, to avoid that students actually put their workspace in any other location than the Desktop.
- By default, executing a program terminates any previously running programs. This avoid accidentally overloading the computer with programs that run an infinite loop.
Currently, it is not tested if @{user.home}\Desktop\eclipse-workspace correctly resolves to the Desktop of the user within the exam environment of Erasmus University. This is important to check before deployment of this approach.
The distinct features of the regular package are:
- By default, executing a program terminates any previously running programs. This avoid accidentally overloading the computer with programs that run an infinite loop.
- A number of default settings regarding Java warnings and errors are made more strict. As a result, it should be easier to debug certain common types of mistakes during tutorial sessions.
- The package includes uses its own bundled OpenJDK version, rather than the system-wide JRE. Using a JDK can have some advantages, e.g. when using Maven.
- The Eclipse Web Tools are added as a plugin, in case future courses decide to do something that involves some web-related technologies.
- The SpotBugs plugin is added, because this may help students and teaching assistants to find common bugs in code during tutorials
The techniques to patch the default Eclipse installation consist of:
- Adapting
eclipse.inifor the default workspace location and the choice of the JRE/JDK - Adapting the launch behavior of Eclipse via the file
configuration\.settings\org.eclipse.ui.ide.prefs. - The default preferences of new workspaces are adapted by means of setup-tasks in an Oomph setup script, which is stored in
configuration\org.eclipse.oomph.setup\installation.setup.
For the exam package, the default workspace location is configured using the line -Dosgi.instance.area.default=@user.home/Desktop/eclipse-workspace.
For the regular package, the default JRE/JDK is configured to be a subdirectory of the eclipse installation (where the OpenJDK package is automatically downloaded by the Powershell script). The default JRE/JDK is changed by the following two lines in eclipse.ini:
jdk-11.0.2/bin/server/jvm.dll
The file configuration\.settings\org.eclipse.ui.ide.prefs is only used in the exam package to enforce that students do not get the question which directory to use for their workspace. This way, it can be avoided that students work in the wrong directory and their work gets lost (unless they specifically change their workspace from within Eclipse). For this, the line SHOW_WORKSPACE_SELECTION_DIALOG=false is added here.
The Eclipse Oomph framework allows for customized setup of a default workspace. For the exam package, this is only used to enable the Terminate and Relaunch while launching setting in the workspace preferences under Run/Debug > Launching. For the regular package, additional default preferences that provide stricter warnings for certain code smells are enabled under Java > Compiler > Errors/Warnings, which should make it slightly easier to catch these types of mistakes during programming tutorials. Furthermore, the installation.setup script of the regular package contains dependencies on two Eclipse plugins: SpotBugs, which is a tool students can use to run static code analysis on their, which may find more potential bugs than the regular error and warnings mechanism of Eclipse. Secondly, the Eclipse Web Tools are included, so we could consider to combine some web development in future classes or courses, if that turns out to be desirable.
While customizing eclipse.ini and org.eclipse.ui.ide.prefs are pretty straight forward, the XML format of installation.setup is pretty difficult to edit, as it requires the definition of various setup tasks. To edit or create a customized installation.setup, it is recommended to use a clean installation of Eclipse. If the welcome tab is closed, the default installation.setup can be edit by choosing Navigate > Open Setup > Installation from the menu bar. When this file is openen, the toolbar contains a button with a red dot that has Record preferences . Clicking this button allows you to change the preferences of a default workspace, and record them as XML setup tasks. Be sure to save the file after the preferences are recorded.
The default installation of plugins can be added to the installation file by clicking right mouse on the Installation file item in the tree, and then choosing New Child > P2 Director. By right clicking on the newly added P2 Director node, it is possible to add Repositories that contain the plugin dependencies, and Requirements that actually specify certain plugins should be installed upon the first launch.
For the SpotBugs plugin the repository is https://spotbugs.github.io/eclipse/ and the requirement is com.github.spotbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.group. For the Eclipse Web Tools, the repository is https://download.eclipse.org/releases/2018-09 and the requirement is com.github.spotbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.group.
The proper setting to define a requirement can be discovered after installing a plugin into Eclipse through Help > About Eclipse IDE in the main menu bar, then clicking Installation details, then clicking on a feature and clicking the Properties. The under General Information, the proper value can be found after Identifier:. The repository is the Eclipse Download Site that is usually specified on the website of an Eclipse plugin project.