Getting started
When going to the Eclipse site, I was greeted with a cool book looking page about Kepler. Who Kepler is, what’s new, the link to download, etc. 
Choosing a package
Eclipse has a nice chart comparing the features in each edition. I’m excited to see git and maven got promoted to the Java EE edition. In fact the Java EE edition is *almost* a superset of the Java edition now. The download is 50MB bigger than last time. And since Verizon wired the basement for FIOS but not any individual apartments yet, this means 30-45 minute download. Now that I have the file eclipse-jee-kepler-R-macosx-cocoa-x86_64.tar, I can start.
Installing on A Mac was a small adventure
I did the usual of untarring and copying the eclipse folder into Applications. I got an error: “Eclipse” is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Trash.
I found a command here to get Gatekeeper to allow it: xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/eclipse/Eclipse.app
Then I got: Failed to load the JNI shared library /Library/java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.7.0.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/../jre/lib/client/libjvm.dylib
I was on Java 7 update 17. I updated to update 25, but that didn’t help. I then tried using a launch startup script per the bug report. Note that I needed to change two bolded lines to point to my install location.
#!/bin/bash /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.7.0.jdk/Contents/Home/jre/bin/java \ -Djava.library.path=<strong>/Applications/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher.cocoa.macosx.x86_64_1.1.200.v20130521-0416/eclipse_1507.so</strong> \ -Xms512m \ -Xmx2048m \ -Xdock:icon=../Resources/Eclipse.icns \ -XstartOnFirstThread \ -Dorg.eclipse.swt.internal.carbon.smallFonts \ -XX:MaxPermSize=256m \ -jar /Applications/eclipse/plugins/org.eclipse.equinox.launcher_1.3.0.v20130327-1440.jar \ -os macosx \ -ws cocoa \ -arch x86_64 \ -showsplash \ -name Eclipse \ --launcher.appendVmargs \ -debug
It sounds like this will be fixed in Kepler SR 1. In the meantime I renamed my script to end in .command so I can open it via the applications finder window (nice tip)
First Impressions
Since some of the plugins I was using are now built in and others I don’t use anymore (that I installed over the past year), I decided not to import my plugins from a previous installation and start anew. It’s easy enough to install from the marketplace.
The significant plugins I use:
| Plugin | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Mongrel | Tomcat integration supporting Tomcat 7. (The version of Sysdeo I was using seems to have had that too but at least Mongrel looks more active.) Used the Sysdeo source code and forked it since Sysdeo isn’t getting updates anymore. |
| Ecl Emma | Code coverage |
| PMD and FindBugs | Static analysis |
| Subversive | To access Subversion repositories |
| Groovy/Grails Tool Suite | Groovy project/editor and console |
| Eclipse Memory Analyzer | For finding memory leaks – must use update site rather than marketplace |
| Freemarker IDE | Freemarker syntax highlighting and macro assistance. Note that it is listed under the JBoss Tool Project. |
| Papyrus | UML editor – under install new software > kepler > papyrus (I don’t recommend Papyrus at this time.) |
| Python | Python plugin/perspective |
What excites me
- Mylyn connector improvements (for code review)
- Remove type arguments after content assist – this happened just often enjoy to be annoying
- IDE support for JUnit Assumptions
What frustrates me
- The mess about Mac support for Kepler. It’s annoying launching from the command line (or even a command).