Downloading and Installing Eclipse

Thanks to Rich Pattis of CMU for letting me use these instructions

Important: You must have Java installed before installing Eclipse.

The following instructions were composed for installing Eclipse Classic on Windows. The process for Mac/Linux should be similar. If later versions of Eclipse come out before I update these instructions, you might have to go through a slightly different process (please contact me if you do).

The Eclipse Foundation has multiple versions of Eclipse. The "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" is a very powerful tool designed for professional software developers. It is a bit much for CS314. Instead I recommend downloading "Eclipse Classic" which is still very powerful, but not as loaded down with features as the "Eclipse IDE for Java Developers" is.

Downloading Eclipse

1. Go to the Eclipse download page. (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/)
    
2. Download the  Eclipse IDE for Java Developers. From the list that is displayed pick a site to download from. This will start the download of a zip file with everything needed for Eclipse.
    
3. Save the file it is about to download somewhere on your disk drive. The exact form of this interaction will depend which operating system your are using. Store this zip file somewhere permanent on your disk drive, so that you can unzip it (recreate Eclipse) later, if necessary
    
4. Terminate (X) any windows remaining from this process.

 Installing Eclipse

1. Unzip this file that you just downloaded.
   On most Windows machines, you can
   • Right-click the file.
   • Move to the WinZip command.
   • Click Extract to here

   It creates a folder named eclipse. You can leave this folder here or move it elsewhere on your disk drive.

    

2. Create a shortcut on your desktop to the eclipse.exe file.
   On most Windows machines, you can
   • Right-press the file eclipse.exe
   • Drag it to the desktop.
   • Release the right button.
   • Click Create shortcut here

   Now you are ready to perform a one-time only setup of Eclipse.

    

3. Double-click the shortcut to Eclipse that you just created. In the Workspace Launcher window, in the box following Workspace:, should appear something like C:\Documents and Settings\username\workspace (where username is your login on the machine). If you want, you can type in (or browse) another location for the workspace file to be created, but I advise accepting the default.

    

4. Uncheck the box labeled Use this as the default and do not ask again.
   Aside: you will be using one workspace during the semester, checking projects in and out of this workspace. If you ever want to re-enable the display of this window, once Eclipse starts, you can
   • Select Window | Preferences.
   • Click the + in front of General or double-click General (after the +)
   • Click Startup and Shutdown
   • Check the box labeled Prompt for workspace on startup.

    

5. Click OK

    

6. If you want easy access to the workspace, create a shortcut to it (see the instructions above), putting the shortcut on your desktop.

    

7. Terminate (X) the Welcome window
   You can always get it back by selecting Help|Welcome

    

8. Terminate (X) the Eclipse window.

To get started with Eclipse and help on simple tasks see this web page.