How to use Eclipse for Confluence plugin development

Eclipse can be used to make Confluence plugin development easier.

General setup

• Install Eclipse
• Use Subversion
  • Install the SVN plugin for Eclipse
  • Add the Confluence Subversion site to Eclipse
    • Window->Open perspective and then find the Subversion perspective
    • https://svn.atlassian.com/svn/public/contrib/confluence/
• Use Maven
  • Install Maven 1.0.x
  • Install the Maven (1.x) Eclipse plugin by downloading the jar and copying to the Eclipse plugin directory
  • Setup your MAVEN_REPO property in Eclipse to point to your Eclipse workspace location

    maven eclipse:add-maven-repo -Dmaven.eclipse.workspace=C:/...
    

Plugin specific

The following assumes you have a somewhat standard plugin directory structure that you created or checked out from Subversion. For example:

xxx-plugin
   trunk
      src
         etc
         java
      target

• Edit the project.xml file to make sure it contains all the dependencies needed
  • This must be done before generating the Eclipse project files
  • If the dependencies need to be changed later, the Eclipse project files will need to be re-generated and then in Eclipse, refresh your project using right click -> Refresh
• Generate the Eclipse project and classpath files
  • From a command line, cd to the trunk directory

    cd .../xxx-plugin/trunk
    maven eclipse
    

• Move the .project and .classfile files to the xxx-plugin directory
• Import the project by pointing at the plugin directory (that now contains a .project file!)
  • Right click Import
    
  • Choose Existing Projects into Workspace
    
  • Customize the build path source using right click on project -> Build Path -> Configure Build Path
    • removing the default location
    • adding /trunk/src/etc
    • adding /trunk/src/java
    • adding /trunk (last)
      
• Add MAVEN_REPO classpath variable to Eclipse
  • This only needs to be done for the first plugin you setup
  • MAVEN_REPO is used in the Maven generated .classpath file that contains references to all the dependencies defined to Maven in the project.xml and related files
  • Customize the build path libraries using right click on project -> Build Path -> Configure Build Path
    
  • Add a new variable that points to your maven repository directory
    

Summary

• Eclipse should now analyse the plugin code and report errors
• Once all errors are fixed in Eclipse, a maven build (run outside Eclipse) should be clean