Using Eclipse for CS-140

Warning: These instructions are out of date... please wait for new instructions before installing Eclipse.

Installing Eclipse

Eclipse is an open source Interactive Development Environment (IDE) available free at eclipse.org. There have been several older releases of the Eclipse IDE. Each new release of Eclipse is identified with a release name. Older releases were called "Eclipse Neon" or "Eclipse Oxygen", or "Eclipse Photon". In 2019, the Eclipse organization changed to name each release of Eclipse with the year, followed by the release within the year. At the beginning of the semester, we installed Eclipse 2019-6 on the LNG-103 servers, but now Eclipse 2019-9 is available. If you switch between the different versions, you will get messages, but as far as I have seen so far, everything still works.

Note: Eclipse is already installed on the Binghamton Unix Lab machines and Unix servers. Even though the version of Eclipse might not be totally up to date, please do not try to install your own version of Eclipse on these machines. If you do so, you will exceed your disk quota, and you won't be able to log on to the machines.

Before installing Eclipse, you should already have a Java Development Kit installed on your machine. See Installing Java for CS-140 for details.

To install Eclipse, go to eclipse.org and click on the "Download" button. This will download the Eclipse installer onto your machine. Run the installer, and choose the very first option "Eclipse IDE for Java Devlopers" and follow the instructions. The Eclipse installation should recognize the Java Development Kit installed on your machine.

Using Eclipse for the First Time

The very first time you open Eclipse, it will offer you a "Welcome" window with several options including things like Eclipse tutorials. Feel free to make use of these resources, but eventually, to do real work, click on the "Workbench" button at the upper right. Feel free to unclick the "Alywas show welcome at startup" box. You can always get back to the Welcome screen by choosing "Help/Welcome"

Once you are in the desktop, select a workspace directory. The cs140 directory is a good choice for this. Then, create a new project using File->New->Java Project. Name the java project cs140. From now on, each lab or assignment can be a new package in the cs140 project.

Eclipse Hints and Short-Cuts

This section consists of several hints and shortcuts that may be helpful.

• While you are editing your code, Ctrl-Shift-O automatically figures out if you need to import any packages, and adds (or subtracts) the correct import ....; statements at the top of your Java file.
• While you are editing your code, Ctrl-Shift-I automatically indents your code correctly. If you don't like the formatting style used by default, edit the style by going to Window->Preferences->Java->Code Style->Formatter, and create a new style you like better.
• Create a constructor by moving to the location in the java file where you want it to appear, and choosing Source/Generate Constructor using fields
• Create getters and setters by moving to the location in the java file where you want them to appear, and choosing Source/Getters and Setters. You can choose which getters and/or setters you want Eclipse to generate automatically for you.
• Get used to the different perspectives in Eclipse. We will use three perspectives in this class:
  1. The Java perspective - this is where we will Edit, Compile and Run Java code and will be the primary place to be.
  2. The debug perspective - this is where we will run the debugger when we need to.
  3. The Git perspective - this is where we will interact with "git" to clone repositories into an Eclipse package, and, after editing them, commit changes and push the results back to git.