When working on the Scala IDE I often need to install and uninstall the Scala plugin. Sometimes I need to use the Scala trunk version, other times I need to reproduce a bug in an older version, or simply I need to change to the next nightly. Although I have several Eclipse installations, I still need to tinker with them.
Doing it using the UI is tedious, and requires two restarts: one when you uninstall the feature, and another one when you (re-)install the new one. On top of it, it requires clicking around – how many times did I click Cancel instead of Continue, when faced with the unsigned warning? – and in the end it can take several minutes.
Few people know that Eclipse can be controlled from the command line. Features and bundles can be installed or uninstalled without firing up the UI, saving precious minutes. We have added a customized script in the Scala IDE repository. Here’s a taste of it:
$ eclipse-director.sh uninstall
Eclipse installation dir is /Applications/eclipse-helios-210
Unnstalling..
Uninstalling org.scala-ide.sdt.feature.feature.group 2.1.0.nightly-2_10-201201110534-4c40dde.
!SESSION 2012-02-10 11:18:07.453
[..]
Operation completed in 12919 ms.
By default, this installs the latest nightly build of the Helium builds, for the specified Scala version(2.9.2-SNAPSHOT or trunk). You can install a different version using --branch, or even install from a local repository (directory on disk) using install-local.
$ eclipse-director.sh --eclipse-dir /Applications/eclipse-helios-210 install 2.9.2-SNAPSHOT
Eclipse installation dir is /Applications/eclipse-helios-210
Installing 2.9.2-SNAPSHOT..
[..]
Installing org.scala-ide.sdt.feature.feature.group 2.1.0.nightly-2_09-201202091714-4ffdd09.
Operation completed in 46198 ms.
You can specify the location of your Eclipse installation directory using --eclipse-dir.
