Run Eclipse from the Command Line on OS X

If you’re looking to launch Eclipse passing in the -clean parameter on OS X you’ll want to cd into the eclipse directory that contains your Eclipse.app package and use the following syntax in bash or your favorite shell terminal:

./eclipse -clean -vmargs -XstartOnFirstThread

The arguments following ./eclipse are all passed to Eclipse and the arguments following -vmargs are passed to the Java jvm.

As an alternative you can modify the Eclipse ini file (see image below for ini location). If you alter the ini file, the arguments set there will be passed in each time Eclipse is run as opposed to a one time deal with the command line.

Why would you want to use the -clean argument? According to the documentation the -clean argument provides the following:

Cleans cached data used by the OSGi framework and Eclipse runtime. Try to run Eclipse once with this option if you observe startup errors after install, update, or using a shared configuration.

Newly installed plugins will often not work until Eclipse has been run with the -clean parameter. After a good chunk of time the Eclipse workspace may also become corrupt and -clean can sometimes work wonders. If you’re having Eclipse workspace issues check out Riyad Kalla’s excellent article.

Finally, if you’re like me and have hard time remembering where in the Eclipse help documentation you kind find all of the Eclipse startup arguments and their uses the Jing screengrab below should help.

Setting Eclipse and Java application JVM heap size on Mac OS X

The other day I kept on getting annoying “out of heap space” errors in Eclipse while running a memory intensive Java application I had written and it took a bit of searching to find the answer, so I thought I’d make a quick screencast that demonstrates how to increase the heap size of the JVM that Eclipse uses as well as how to increase the heap size allocated to your Java applications by Eclipse.

This screencast is also available in podcast format for video iPods.

Compiling ASDT from CVS

I was bored and wanted to check out the latest ASDT features / fixes, so I downloaded the ASDT source files from CVS and figured out how to compile them for use in Eclipse. I put together a Camtasia Studio video tutorial of the whole procedure which can be cound via the link below. It’s actually quite an easy process, though I did get bogged down for a few minutes trying to download all of the views into a single project before realizing the error of my way. Enjoy!

Compile ASDT video tutorial.

Test Drive: ASDT .8 Preview Release

I finally got around to setting up my Eclipse environmet using the new ASDT .8 plugin auto-update feature. There are a few gotchas which I stumbled upon along the way, so I decided to create a captivate tutorial covering installation, configuration and use in addition to the outline that follows:

ASDT .8 auto update, configuration and use tutorial.

1. Make sure you remove the old ASDT plugin from the Eclipse plugins directory prior to installing the update. Things definately don’t work right if you don’t take this step.
2. I’m probably a bit paranoid, but after uninstalling the old ASDT 7.1 plugin I closed eclipse and launched it again from the command line with the -clean parameter. I also did the same thing after successfully installing the plugin…I’m not certain it “cleans” anything, but it can’t hurt.
3. After running the plugin update and installing, you’ll notice a few new things:
   • There is now a full blown ActionScript perspective.
   • The configuration of the editor is slightly different.
   • There is no longer an MTASC view available.
   • There is a new AS Logger view.
4. I was a bit perplexed by the lack of an MTASC view, but after a few minutes of reflection I guessed that ultimately the ASDT boys are looking to parallel their plugin to what is available for Java. The Java editor spits out error messages to the standard Eclipse Console view and, sure enough, all I had to do in order to get my MTASC compiler messages back was open up the Eclipse Console view (make sure you have the ASDT editor configured to use MTASC as its compiler and that you have selected the “Check Syntax on Save” and “Check syntax when an AS file is opened” check boxes).
5. I’m not certain, to date, how the ASLogger functions. There seems to be no way to configure it at this point and our comrades in arms on the OSFlash mailing list are all asking the same question. Hopefully, when the .8 release is “official” we’ll hear a bit more about this.

Overall, things look to be shaping up nicely with ASDT. There are still bugs and many features I’d like to see implemented, but the open-source team is doing admirable work and certainly have my heartfelt appreciation–Nice work guys.

Connecting to CVS & SVN Repositories with Eclipse – Eclipse for Flash Dummies Series

I’m sure this is old hat for all the “real” developers in the Flash community, but I recently began exploring downloading source files from CVS and Subversion using Eclipse. CVS and Subversion are version control repositories which allow you to track the history of source files. They are especially useful for teams where multiple developers may be working on projects at the same time. However, with the explosion of the OSFlash movement it is now necessary for Flash developers to understand how to download the source files for the various projects exposed on the OSFlash Wiki which do not provide binaries (executables or installers).

The process for using both CVS and Subversion with Eclipse is similar, however Subversion requires an additional plugin, Subclipse, while CVS is a native part of Eclipse. I’ve provided captivate tutorials on how to connect to both repository types and create projects based on them below (as an added plus, if you’ve ever wanted to download and compile the source for your favorite Apache products you should now be armed with the capability to do so).

Connecting to a CVS repository tutorial

Setup Subclipse and connect to a Subversion repository tutorial

Enjoy!