Getting Ready for Eclipse 3.5 (Galileo): What’s New?
With the announcement of Release Candidate 3, it’s a couple of weeks until Eclipse 3.5 code named “Galileo” will reach GA status. This new release of the popular Java development environment includes several new features and improvements over its previous version.
The new features include:
Platform and UI
Solaris x86 has joined the lineup of supported configuration
The Install New Software wizard now supports auto-complete in the Work with:combo
A new intro theme called "Slate" has been added
Switching between open editors and multiple editor pages has been streamlined.
You can now safely skip the history cleanup step for a faster shutdown
For general prompts and dialogs regarding editors, or the current Workbench window, sheets are now used on Mac Cocoa
Applications can now programmatically select portrait or landscape mode when printing, or when opening a PrintDialog.
The Eclipse rich client platform now includes an implementation of OSGi declarative services (DS)
You can now pin the Properties view to a given selection
A new preference page supports managing the startup prompt to select a workspace
The About Dialog now provides a mechanism for plug-ins to contribute installation pages to the platform about dialog
The Install New Software wizard will now open immediately without waiting to connect to any update sites
Double-click on the vertical folding line now collapses the folding region
There are several enhancements to the Compare Editor
You can now quickly switch between suspended threads in the Debug view
Support for Cocoa and OpenGL on Cocoa
Support has been added to the FileTransfer class to allow for copy/paste operations between the Explorer and the Nautilus file manager.
Several Improvements on the Project Explorer
Textual editors now support block (aka column or rectangular) selection mode
You can now apply a patch directly in the Synchronize view
Comparing Word document changes in Eclipse now uses the Word compare support to show you the changes as revisions
Equinox
The Equinox DebugOptions API has been enhanced to support dynamic changes to option settings
A new debug tracing API, org.eclipse.osgi.service.debug.DebugTrace, has been added to enhance and simply writing of debug trace messages
The OSGi R4.2 Core Specification is adding a number of small API additions to the core Framework
New Equinox concurrency API
Plug-in Development Environment
There is a new new Target Platform State view
You can now create and share a target definition composed of software from software sites
The new Category Definition editor can be used to assign categories to features when exporting
You can now view API changes relative to an API baseline
View information about menus by invoking Plug-in Spy in menu introspection mode
The OSGi Declarative Services (DS) tooling has been enhanced to support the latest version of the DS specification
You can now initialize product definitions from OSGi launch configurations.
There is a new target platform preference page
Plug-in export now supports the creation of source bundles
The declarative services tooling now supports the latest OSGi declarative services specification (1.1) update
The JAR signing support in PDE has been expanded to include support for keypasses
The target editor has been enhanced to support new features in target definitions
API tools can now analyze use of system libraries and create problems when code accesses members that may not be present at runtime
You can now launch JUnit Plug-in tests in a non-UI thread
Eclipse Application launch configurations now support start levels and auto-start settings
The Plug-in Registry view now supports browsing for OSGi services
A new extension has been added to PDE/Build that enables users to fetch artifacts from p2 repositories
API tooling now supports two restrictions on interfaces: @noimplement and @noextend. This allows an interface to be extended when it is not intended to be implemented directly
You can now be alerted to breaking API changes even if you have incremented the major version of your plug-in
PDE has enhanced bundle and feature export to install the resulting exported bundles/feature into the currently running workbench
Supports exporting features, plug-ins and product with binary cycles
PDE has added declarative services tooling to help author service component definitions
Java development tools
The NLS string hover now has an Open in Properties File action
In Callers mode, the Call Hierarchy now has an Expand With Constructors action in the context menu
The Java compare editor now updates its structure while you are typing inside the editor
There is a new toString() generator
An Open Implementation hyperlink has been added for overridable methods, which directly opens the implementation
Compiler compliance follows execution environment
Debug view now offers a breadcrumb which shows the current active debug context
The Runnable JAR File Export wizard can now also package the required libraries into the exported runnable JAR file or into a folder next to the JAR
Content Assist can now propose the available constructors of a class when the completion happens in an allocation expression
The compiler can now issue a warning if dead code is detected
The path of a library, variable or container entry can now be anywhere relative to the project
In the headers of Javadoc hovers and the Javadoc view, references to other types and members are now links
The JUnit4 version shipped with Eclipse has been updated to 4.5
The Javadoc view and hovers now support the {@inheritDoc} tag and add links to overridden methods
Comparing identical values is now detected by the compiler and reported as a warning by default
The schedule for the complete Galileo Simultaneous Release project informs that there will be 2 more RC before the GA version which is scheduled for June 24th.