Sample of a mavenized eclipse RCP plugin with eclipse IDE support

This project demonstrates how to develop an eclipse Rich Client Platform plugin using Maven for build and dependency management, without giving up eclipse IDE support and without using Tycho or m2e.

Run mvn install. The resulting artifact is an eclipse plugin.

1. Generate Eclipse metadata:

    mvn clean package eclipse:eclipse -Declipse.pde install
   

2. Import the projects into Eclipse:

    File->Import->Existing Projects into Workspace
   

3. Run the eclipse-plugin project:

    Run As->Eclipse Application
   

4. Open the view:

    Window->Show View->Other->Test Category->Test View
   

• eclipse-plugin

  This project was generated using the Plug-in with a view eclipse template. It has been mavenized and modified to introduce some trivial dependencies.

• eclipse-plugin-utils

  Used by eclipse-plugin to demonstrate a dependency on another project in the same workspace.

1. Maven vs. eclipse resource convention

   Maven conventionally wants resources in src/main/resources while eclipse wants all of its resources in the root. The solution was to place resources in the root and include them using Maven (see eclipse-plugin/pom.xml).

2. Eclipse Maven repository

   The latest maven repository in central dates back to eclipse version 3.3. The m4e tool can be used to generate maven repositories from the latest eclipse, but for the sake of simplicity I am using version 3.3.

Apache Felix maven-bundle-plugin article on eclipse integration:

• Eclipse/PDE Integration

Apache UIMA uses maven-bundle-plugin:

• Source repositories
• Building Eclipse Plugins with maven-bundle-plugin and friends