Installing Eclipse PDT for use with M-L-Z SVN server

The Eclipse development environment is ideally suited to HCL development, comprised of a java framework, it encompasses nearly everything needed to work on HCL code.

This how-to was developed by installing Eclipse on a Linux Machine, this should be nearly identical for a Windows or Mac platform.

Step 1: Getting Eclipse

Visit http://download.eclipse.org/tools/pdt/downloads/ to download the current version of PDT. You will want to select the current stable release. When you reach the release page, scroll down to the "All-in-one" packages. Choose your operating system and download the package. You will then be taken to a list of mirror sites to download PDT.

Step 2: Basic Eclipse PDT install

Now that you've suffered through the 100 meg download (yes, it's huge!), we can add the Eclipse Subclipse plug-in to allow Sub VersioN (SVN) access. Subclipse is a project to add Subversion support to the Eclipse IDE.

We'll use Eclipse's update manager to add Subclipse to our Eclipse IDE. From the Help menu in Eclipse, choose Software Updates > Find and Install to open the update manager. In addition to using this to look for software updates, we can use the update manager to find and install new features, such as Subclipse. Be sure that Search for new features to install is selected, then click Next to continue. Eclipse displays the next update manager panel.

Since we're after a specific feature, un-check the existing sites, then click New Remote Site to display the New Update Site dialog. We'll use this to add the Subclipse update site to the list. Enter whatever you want for the Name (Subclipse is a good choice) and enter the following for the URL: http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.2.x (the current Subclipse update site). Click OK to add the Subclipse update site to the list in the update manager.

Click Finish in the update manager window to begin searching for new features. In this case, the new feature we're after is Subclipse. After a few moments, the update manager's search is complete, and it displays the search results.

Check Subclipse (you can click the disclosure triangle to see what exactly is included in this feature), then click Next to view the feature's license terms. Accept the terms, then click Next to review the features you've chosen to install. Click Finish to download and install Subclipse.

The update manager downloads the Subversion components. Before installing anything, Eclipse will warn you that the features aren't digitally signed. This is your last chance to cancel the installation. Click Install All to continue the installation.

Once Subversion has been installed, Eclipse warns you that you might need to restart the IDE to activate the new features. Restart Eclipse, just in case.

When Eclipse comes back up, Subclipse is installed and ready to go.

If you're running Eclipse on Mac OS X or Linux¨, you may need to install the JavaHL library, which is described in the Troubleshooting section of the Subclipse FAQ. Do this before you continue trying to use Subclipse. Note: Under Fedora 6, this doesn't appear necessary.

Step 3: Creating the HCL location

From Eclipse's File menu, choose Import to display the import manager. Choose Checkout Projects from SVN, then click Next.

On the Select/Create Location panel, we need to create a new location (since we don't have any configured yet), so click Next to continue. If the Next button is disabled, switch to the Use existing repository location option, then back to Create a new repository location to enable the Next button.

In the next section, add the repository URL (http://www.m-l-z.com/repos/hcl/) to the Url field, then click Next. After a moment, Eclipse prompts you for user ID and password. If you don't have an account on the Subclipse site, enter guest for the user ID and a space for the password, check the Save Password box, and click OK.

For 3.0.0 Developers, you want the Branches/3.x.x/hcl/trunk version. If your working on 2.1.x, you will want hcl/trunk/hcl-2.1.x version. NOTE: 2.1.x may not receive new features, as it interfers with our stable branch.