Essential Eclipse Plugins
I’ve been using Eclipse now for a few years (Since version 2.1), and one of its best features is the great selection of plugins. The de-facto sight for getting the latest and greatest plugins is at http://eclipse-plugins.2y.net/. This site has really helped me find a great selection.
The following list is only a *fraction* of the plugins available, but these are ones that I consistently use on a day-to-day basis and find increndibly valuable. But, just like most things… Beauty is in the eye of the beholder… so I may have missed some obvious/popular plugins. I’d be interested in finding out what other popular plugins are out there, and what other developers like best. All of these plugins I’ve listed are not targeted for a specific development environment. They are equally applicable for Java, Perl, or C (or others).
Logging
Name: Log4E
Website Url: http://log4e.jayefem.de/
Eclipse Update URL: http://log4e.jayefem.de/update
Product Version: 1.1.6
Price: Free / Professional Version = 5,5 Euro (~ $6.54 USD)
Description:
This plugin helps automate creating Log4J logger declarations, insertions, and modifications.
Name: Log4Eclipse
Website URL: http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/log4eclipse/
Eclipse Update URL: N/A
Product Version:
Price: Free
Description:
This plugin is a chainsaw-compatible network listener for Log4* SocketAppender streams. This plugin is very similar to another free plugin called Ganymede, available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ganymede/. I just recently started evaluating Log4Eclipse when I upgraded to Eclipse 3.1, and I’m very happy with it so far. I’m going to give it a try for a little while longer before I decide to permanently switch from Ganymede.
XML Editing
Name: XML Buddy
Website URL: http://www.xmlbudy.com
Eclipse Update URL: N/A
Product Version:
Price: Free / Professional Version = $35.00 USD
Description:
This plugin supports a number of features including support for DTD, XML Schema, and XSLT.
Database
Name: Eclipse DBExplorer
Website URL: http://www.diligent-it.com
Eclipse Update URL: N/A
Product Version: 2.2
Price: Free / Professional Version = $35.00 USD
Description:
This plugin supports a database browser, HTML export, SQL Runner, and interface for executing SQL queries.
Configuration Management
Name: Eclipse Ant Explorer
Website URL: http://www.yworks.com/en/products_antexplorer_about.htm
Eclipse Update URL: http://www.yworks.com/eclipse/update
Product Version: 1.0.1
Price: Free
Description:
This plugin supports a graphical visualization of ant scripts.