Eclipse 3.0 Delivers Universal Platform for
Application Construction
- Expands Support for Award Winning Java Tools Integration
- New User Interface Integration Helps Tool Providers Migrate Swing-Based
Offerings to Eclipse
- CDT and Hyades Projects Enhance Capabilities
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, CANADA - June 21, 2004 - Today the Eclipse Foundation
announced general availability of the royalty-free 3.0 release of the
Eclipse Platform, adding enhancements that improve flexibility, scalability,
interoperability and responsiveness. Eclipse is an award-winning universal
platform for tools integration, software modeling and testing that has
been broadly adopted by commercial vendors, academic institutions and
open technology developers. With release 3.0, Eclipse now extends its
sophisticated object-oriented development technologies to support a rich-client
platform (RCP) that enables construction of desktop applications.
"Eclipse has come a long way in its short history. It has done well
to attract a steady, but rapidly growing following from many organizations
who want a quality backed development platform that has broad and unifying
support within the software industry," said Bola Rotibi, senior analyst
of Software Development at Ovum. "These timely new enhancements demonstrate
the commitment the organization has to providing an effective, scalable
and open-sourced development environment-not only for Java J2EE, but also
encompassing other language environments, notably C/C++. Clearly, any
enhancements to the power and flexibility of the environment will be a
bonus to those committed, to or looking to commit, to Eclipse."
Eclipse 3.0 is the cumulative result of 15 months of project investment
by supporting members and the Eclipse community, continuing the commitment
to implement open technology built upon established industry standards.
Enhancements such as the following have been made to core facilities to
help make Eclipse use more convenient, consistent and responsive:
- Enhanced the end user's 'out-of-the-box' experience
- Streamlined installation for functionally powerful features with reduced
complexity
- Improved customization of menus and toolbars
- Added new role and experience-based approaches for managing workbench
features and facilities
- Restructured the workbench to allow running underlying program facilities
in the background in a multi-threaded environment.
"Eclipse 3.0 brings new features which will delight plug-in and application
developers that rely on this advanced platform," said Mike Milinkovich,
executive director of the Eclipse Foundation. "Thanks to community support
only possible in an open environment, Eclipse 3.0 quality benefits from
the skill and continuous evaluation of a large number of industry professionals
worldwide."
Concurrent with this new release, the C/C++ Development Tools (CDT) project
and the Hyades application verification and optimization project are shipping
new versions.
Eclipse was originally conceived as a universal platform for tools integration.
Experience and feedback from users made it clear that Eclipse was also
ideally suited for the construction of functionally-rich desktop applications.
Features and facets that have been used as the core of Eclipse's sophisticated
object-oriented development technologies have been restructured and repackaged
in 3.0, making Eclipse an open, extensible platform for application construction
and integration. This includes Eclipse's window-based workbench GUI, the
dynamic plug-in functional extension mechanism, help subsystem and update
manager.
When Java applications are constructed with Eclipse's Standard Widget
Toolkit (SWT) and deployed to different operating platforms, they adopt
native window manager look and feel. On Linux Motif or the GTK, Microsoft
Windows, Mac OS X, Photon, AIX, HP/UX platforms, and other supported platforms,
Eclipse users can develop applications in Java with the true look-and-feel
of the platform.
When used on the Linux and Windows platforms, Eclipse 3.0 adds the ability
to embed Swing widgets in SWT-based user interfaces. This allows integration
of Swing-based applications and tools within the Eclipse workbench and
other functionally-rich applications. New features allow Eclipse plug-in
providers to customize user interfaces and establish a branded appearance
for products and applications.
The Java Development Tools (JDT) project has improved the user experiences
of reading, writing and navigating source code, adding improved refactoring,
code formatting and editor features such as code folding. JDT has been
generalized to enable tools that support Java-related languages like SQLj
and JSPs. This includes implementation of the Java Community Process JSR45
standard for debugging. JDT also now embraces non-language files like
manifests and J2EE deployment descriptors that reference Java language
elements.
Eclipse was adapted to add support for the OSGi (www.osgi.org)
framework specification when constructing functionally extensible applications.
This open standard for plug-in extensions supports installation and dynamic
activation under program control, permitting fine-grain conservation of
resources like memory in complex integrated tools and client environments.
In addition, the Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment now supports
component integration for platforms that incorporate very large numbers
of plug-ins.
CDT and Hyades Project Updates
Other Eclipse-hosted open projects have coordinated their distributions
with the 3.0 launch. These include extensions to the C/C++ Development
Tools and the Hyades Project's implementation of the recently approved
OMG U2TP Test Profile standard.
The C/C++ Development Tools (CDT) offer numerous enhancements to provide
a faster, more productive user experience. To simplify code editing and
navigation, the tools now include improved string searches, configurable
code completion, a C/C++ class browser and a refactoring facility for
automating code changes across an entire project. To speed application
debugging, the debugger now presents both source code and assembly in
the same view. To free developers from writing and maintaining makefiles,
the CDT environment now includes a "managed build" feature.
In addition, the CDT leverages the new multi-threading support in Eclipse
3.0. As a result, operations such as indexing and building can now run
in the background, allowing the developer to continue working on other
tasks.
Other new features include improved interfacing with modeling tools,
support for national languages through I18N-style internationalization
and new API documentation that makes it easier for tool providers to incorporate
CDT technology into their offerings.
Hyades 3.0 provides an integration framework and extensible core tools
for application verification and optimization. Technology in the framework
includes testing, tracing, profiling, logging and monitoring application
systems. This project extends Eclipse to span the entire project lifecycle
from development and deployment through production and monitoring. Hyades
includes an Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF)-based implementation of data
models for trace, log, statistical data, test execution history and tests
as well as sample test execution engines for JUnit, HTTP URL and manual
testing environments; statistical performance data collection agents for
Microsoft environments; Apache log collection agents; Java trace agents
and Java probe insertion kits. An integrated extensible framework of generic
interoperable data model editors and viewers is also provided.
Availability
Distributions of Eclipse 3.0 will be available by June 30 for download
from http://www.eclipse.org.
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