I am currently working on automating the setup of a complex development environment for a project that uses Eclipse as the primary IDE, including custom-built plugins. The goal is to containerize the entire development environment using Docker, which includes not only the Eclipse IDE but also pre-installing various plugins. We have successfully run the Eclipse IDE with GUI applications inside Docker using X11 on both Linux and Windows. However, I am encountering issues with pre-installing Eclipse plugins programmatically.
To install the plugins, I have attempted to use org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director in headless mode. As an example, I tried to install the Subclipse SVN plugin from the Eclipse Marketplace. Here is the command I used:
eclipse -nosplash \
-application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director \
-repository https://subclipse.github.io/updates/subclipse/4.2.x/ \
-installIU org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.core \
-installIU org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.ui \
-installIU org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.graph \
-installIU org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.mylyn \
-installIU org.tmatesoft.svnkit \
-installIU org.tigris.subversion.clientadapter.svnkit \
-installIU org.tigris.subversion.subclipse.feature.group \
-installIU org.tmatesoft.svnkit.feature.group
The command executes without errors, and I can confirm that the JAR files for the plugins are present in the plugins directory of the Eclipse installation. However, when I start Eclipse and check the installed plugins for my default workspace, the newly installed plugins do not appear.
I'm seeking advice on what might be going wrong with this approach. Is there an additional step or flag required for the plugins to be recognized by a workspace when Eclipse is launched? Or perhaps there's a better method for pre-installing plugins in a Dockerized Eclipse environment?
Any insights or alternative methods for achieving this are greatly appreciated. Thank you!