Eclipse Mars 2 Download for Mac Updated

Eclipse Mars 2 Download for Mac

First of all, happy birthday. This is Eclipse'southward tenth annual release train.

When I went to eclipse.org, I saw a squeamish picture of Mars. I have a choice of downloads including Java EE, Java and Spring Tool Suite. The matrix comparing the packages is all the same clear. I chose the Java EE version. The download page had a warning that "Eclipse requires Mac OS 10 10.five (Leopard) or greater." No problem. I'm on the latest version. I'm also on the latest version of Java eight.

The "tar" file (native app)

The first affair to detect is that Eclipse provides a tar file. Ok so that's non new. What is new is that the tar file cannot be opened by the tar command because it contains absolute path names. And that Eclipse is at present a native Mac app. This took me past surprise because I installed before looking at the docs.

More memory

Eclipse Mars uses more memory past default. Make sure you have plenty before launching. I don't await to accept problems with this.

To amend the "out of the box" user feel on today's modernistic hardware, the default maximum heap size (-Xmx VM argument) has been increased from 512M to 1024M. And the initial heap size (-Xms) has been increased from 40M to 256M.

Initial launch

When launching my workspace, I got the warning:

Alert: Workspace '/myWorkspace' was written with an older version of the product and will be updated. Updating the workspace tin can brand it incompatible with older versions of the product. Are you sure you want to continue with this workspace.

Which is fine. I'm not going astern. And all the of import lawmaking is in Subversion or Git anyway.

Installing the plugins

Like last year, I decided to install the plugins I need for Eclipse Market so I tin can shed the plugins I tried out and don't actually want. Cleaning plugin firm once a year is nice.

The pregnant plugins I utilize are listed in this tabular array. A number of plugins were beta for Luna or I had to apply the Kepler version. I don't remember that problem in previous years.

Terminal year, I tried out the Code Recommenders plugin. I didn't install it this twelvemonth as I hardly used information technology. I added Contrast and Bytecode Analyzer as plugins I installed in the past 12 months that I similar. I besides added ADT and tried out Optimizer for Eclipse past Nada Plough Around.

Plugin	Purpose
Mongrel	Tomcat integration supporting contempo versions of Tomcat.
Ecl Emma	Code coverage
PMD andFindBugs	Static assay. For PMD, I had to use the update site. An install "happened" through Eclipse Market place, but I didn't any of the PMD settings I was expecting. Using the update site gave me what I expected
Subversive	To access Subversion repositories
Groovy/Grails Tool Suite (didn't install)	Neat project/editor and console. At this time simply the Luna version is bachelor. Just more Bang-up/Grails support is native to Mars and so it probably isn't needed anymore every bit a separate plugin.
Eclipse Retentivity Analyzer	For finding retentiveness leaks. Final year it was in Eclipse MarketPlace. The year before I needed to use the update site. This twelvemonth nosotros are back to using the update site.
Freemarker IDE	Freemarker syntax highlighting and macro assistance. Note that it is listed under the JBoss Tool Project. You pick that plugin and then unselect everything except "Freemarker IDE". The JBoss Tool plugin was in beta on Mars release day. I installed this beta.
Python	Python plugin/perspective
Contrast	In the past 12 months, I installed the Contrast plugin for security. I like this one so re-installed it. See my impressions of the Contrast plugin.
Bytecode Outline	I've been looking at bytecode a good fit for the book to make sure I understand why things are happening. This plugin makes it easy. I offset triedBytecode Visualizer merely install failed. (The website says in that location were 25 failed installs with the same dependency problem in the last 7 days). After installing Bytecode Outline, I realized this was the one I had installed for Luna anyway.
Android Development Tools	I have ADT as a separate install. Information technology will be nice to be able to use my "main" Eclipse for that.
Optimizer for Eclipse	This is like a freeware ad for JRebel. I tried it out and information technology told me a couple things of interest like the heap size. And offered to clear my indexes which had been collecting for over a year.

What excites me

The JUnit view as a button to view only skipped tests. Awesome!
The JUnit view now lets you re-run just one test in a parameterized test suite.
The power to close all tabs to the left or right of a current tab is cool.
Search is faster on multi-core machines. I did notice a marginal improvement. I can't tell if information technology was from this or from cleaning out my indexes.
Quick assists betwixt lambdas and method references
When copying a file the new file is X2 instead of CopyOfX. Saves a few keystrokes per re-create.

What I didn't like

I had troubles setting up Subversion connectivity, but did eventually get it to work.
Since this install is on my abode motorcar, I chose to enable error reporting. Eclipse asks me each time there is an error if I want to written report it. I turned it off after reporting one error. Information technology popped up to frequently and I have trouble imagining the dump has value to anyone. I was also annoyed they included my email in the HTML in the incident.
I accept a few launch configurations to run JUnit tests that I utilize regularly. When I ran each for the first itme, I got prompted for whether I wanted to use the Android JUnit or Java JUnit launchers. Not a big deal, but unexpected.
I'1000 not thrilled about the native Mac awarding thing. The features/plugins directories are now in /Applications/Eclipse.app/Contents/Eclipse instead of a directory of my choosing. I'm as well concerned near whether I'll be able to have 4.iv and four.5 on my machine concurrently in a year. Conduct says you can have multiple versions installed.

Other interesting features

Ctrl-Alt-B shortcut to skip all breakpoints. I don't apply breakpoints frequently and then I don't need a shortcut for this. Information technology's absurd they created i though.
There are said to exist Maven updates including better autocomplete. I didn't find anything.
Oomph for deploying Eclipse sounds like information technology has potential in a workspace environment
A Java nine experimental plugin It assumes have yous have downloaded Coffee 9 which I haven't already. I'm glad I won't demand to install a beta Eclipse when I'm set to effort out Coffee nine though.