Appendix A.1 - Plug-ins

The following list of plug-ins—some commercial, some open source, some expensive, some very inexpensive or free—represents our short list of plug-ins that you should seriously take a look at. All of these are very high-quality and very well-respected in the Eclipse community.

CodeProStudio
EclipseProfiler
EclipseUML
MyEclipse
WindowBuilder
XMLBuddy

CodePro Studio

CodePro Studio (available for $699, with a non-commercial version available for $99) adds more than 500 enhancements to Eclipse in the areas of best practices, code quality, developer productivity, and build management. Key features include code audit, metrics, Javadoc repair, design patterns, dependency analyzer, export sets, Ant integration enhancements, task scheduler, and team collaboration tools.

Code audit catches more than 400 audit violations with full support for Ant scripts and headless operation. Dynamic code audit mode catches errors as they occur, while built-in “quick fix” integration automatically fixes most violations. Easily add your own audit rules via an Eclipse extension point and exchange audit rule sets with other developers. Generate detailed audit reports in multiple formats.
Code metrics have drill–down capability and trigger points.
The project/package dependency analyzer graphically examines cycles and closures. It generates detailed dependency reports and metrics.
Support for design patterns (all 23 “Gang of Four” plus many others).
Javadoc repair tool.
Spell-checker for comments, identifiers, literals, properties, and XML files.
Enhanced JUnit Test Case wizard.
Color-enhanced Java views.
Java History view.
Modified Types and Members views.
VisualAge Java-style views and perspective.
Ant script wizard and enhanced Ant tasks.
Powerful task scheduler for Eclipse scripting.
Many editor enhancements.
Memory Monitor view.
Preferences import/export/exchange tool.
Global workspace administration.
Inter-workspace messaging.
Eclipse-based (Koi) collaboration server.

EclipseProfiler

This is a free Eclipse plug-in that provides Java profiling tools. It allows a Java developer to tune the performance of his or her Java programs all within the comfort of Eclipse. Key features include:

Tomcat CPU profiling
Tomcat heap profiling
JBoss profiling
WebLogic profiling
Resin profiling
CPU profiling

EclipseUML

EclipseUML is a visual modeling tool, natively integrated with Eclipse and CVS. It is capable of managing hundreds of simultaneous connections and is therefore suitable for large software development projects. Key features of the free edition include:

Live bi-directional code and model synchronization
Native Graphical Editor Framework (GEF) integration
Native Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF) integration

An Enterprise version (available for $1990) adds the following features:

Complete Java Version 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) lifecycle.
Complete database modeling lifecycle.
Open API and UML profiles are being merged and will offer a unique opportunity to fully customize your applications.

MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench

MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench (available for $29 via yearly subscription) is a completely integrated product extension for Eclipse and offers a full-featured J2EE IDE based on the Eclipse platform. MyEclipse supports the full development lifecycle (code, deploy, test, and debug) for JavaServer Pages (JSP), Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB), XML, and Struts. Its main features include:

Smart editors with code completion and syntax coloring for JSP, HTML, Struts, XML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and J2EE deployment descriptors.
XML editing with smart code completion, DTD caching for offline support, and an outline navigation viewer
Struts support via a configuration editor with code completion and a layout flow viewer.
JSP syntax validation and native JSP debugging, plus full support for JSR045.
Step-through debugging for included JSP files.
JSP rendering.
Support for the JSP 2.0 expression language.
Customizable creation templates for JSPs HTML, XML, servlets, and applets.
Integrated browser for real-time rendering.
XDoclet support
Creation of Web, EAR, and EJB projects.
Java project-to-Web project enablements.
WAR, JAR, and EAR import and export.
EJB wizards.
Sync-on-demand, or automated deployment of applications to integrated servers.
Archive-based deployment (EAR and WAR).
Over 20 application server connectors, including Bejy Tiger, JBoss, Jetty, Jonas, JRun, Oracle, Orion, Resin, Tomcat, WebLogic, and WebSphere.
Integrated controls for starting and stopping servers.
Full hot-swap debugging support for deployed applications.

WindowBuilder Pro

WindowBuilder Pro is a powerful and easy to use two-way Java GUI designer based on Eclipse SWT technology. It is composed of SWT Designer and Swing Designer and is a very easy to create Java GUI applications without spending a lot of time writing code to display simple forms. With WindowBuilder Pro you can create complicated windows in minutes. Use the visual designer and Java code will be generated for you. You can easily add controls using drag-and-drop, add event handlers to your controls, change various properties of controls using a property editor and much more.

XMLBuddy

XMLBuddy is the ultimate XML editor for Eclipse supporting XML, DTD, XML schema, RELAX NG, RELAX NG compact syntax, and XSLT. Key features of the free edition include:

User-configurable syntax coloring for XML and DTD.
Dynamic code assist for XML driven by DTD or current document contents.
Dynamically updated outline (tree) view.
Generates DTD from example XML document.
Validates XML documents with DTDs or XML schemas.
Automatically validates XML in background while user edits.
Formats XML documents, on command or while user edits (auto-flow).

The Pro version (available for $35) adds the following features:

User-configurable syntax coloring and code assist for XML schema, RELAX NG, RELAX NG compact syntax, and XSLT
Dynamic code assist for XML driven by XML schema, RELAX NG, or RELAX NG compact syntax.
Specialized editors for XML schema, RELAX NG, RELAX NG compact syntax, and XSLT, providing code assist and validation based on built-in schemas.
Generates XML instance from DTD or XML schema, RELAX NG, or RELAX NG compact syntax schema.
Converts between DTD, XML schema, RELAX NG, or RELAX NG compact syntax in both directions.
Applies XSLT transformations.
Automatically validates DTD, XML schema, RELAX NG, and RELAX NG compact syntax in background while user edits.
Opens definition in DTDs, XML schemas, or RELAX NG schemas (XML or compact syntax).