plugin-gradle

Equo IDE for Gradle

• a build plugin for Gradle and Maven
• downloads, configures, and launches an instance of the Eclipse IDE
• ensures that all of your devs have a zero-effort and perfectly repeatable IDE setup process
• makes it easy to develop, dogfood, and distribute new IDE plugins

Use it like this with gradlew equoIde

plugins {
  id 'dev.equo.ide' version '{{ latest version at top of page }}'
}
equoIde { // launch with gradlew equoIde
  // see https://github.com/equodev/equo-ide/blob/main/CATALOG.md for all available plugins
  jdt()
  gradleBuildship().autoImport('.') // automatically imports "this" project, could also be '../' or something like that
  // or you can add p2 urls and targets
  // https://github.com/equodev/equo-ide/blob/main/P2_MULTITOOL.md for more info
  
  // you can also customize the IDE branding
  branding().title('My IDE')
  branding().icon(file('my_icon.png'))
  branding().splash(file('my_splash.png'))
  // and make your own plugins, without learning OSGi or p2
  welcome().openUrl('https://github.com/me/myproject/CONTRIBUTING.md')
  
  // for catalog entries you can set workspace properties using DSL
  platform().showLineNumbers(true).showWhitespace(true)
  // or you can set arbitrary properties
  workspaceInit 'instance/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.core.runtime/.settings/org.eclipse.ui.editors.prefs', {
    prop 'lineNumberRuler', 'true'
    prop 'showWhitespaceCharacters', 'true'
  }
}

Task listing

• equoIde to launch the IDE
  • --clean wipes all workspace settings and state before rebuilding and launching.
    • (also revalidates cached p2 data)
  • --show-console pipes console output of the launched IDE to the build console.
  • --init-only initializes the runtime to check for errors then exits.
  • --debug-classpath=[names|paths] dumps the classpath (in order) without starting the application.
  • --debug-ide blocks IDE startup and prints instructions to help you attach a remote debugger.
  • --useAtomos=[true|false] determines whether to use Atomos
• equoList to debug IDE dependencies (p2 multitool)

Web browser

By default, SWT uses the system browser (Internet Explorer on Windows, Safari on mac, etc). This means that SWT browser features are different depending on which operating system is being used. To get a consistent modern browser experience, you can replace the SWT system browser with the Equo Chromium browser.

equoIde {
  equoChromium()

Using Equo Chromium will add https://dl.equo.dev/chromium-swt-ee/equo-gpl/mvn to your list of maven repositories, which is used only for the Chromium dependency.

User plugins

To compile classes against dependencies from p2, you can use dev.equo.p2deps. You can install the plugin you are building into a launched IDE using the dogfood() command. See the code for our ChatGPT plugin for an example of how you can build, dogfood, and distribute an Eclipse plugin without OSGi or p2.

You can use plugin.xml and .e4xmi and all of that, but if you prefer to just make method calls without any metadata, you can also use our IdeHook mechanism. It's what we use to provide features like the welcome hook and automatically importing the current project into Gradle, for example.

apply plugin: 'dev.equo.p2deps'
p2deps {
  into (['compileOnly', 'testImplementation'], {
    p2repo 'https://someurl.com/abc'
    install 'whateverYouWant'
    // https://github.com/equodev/equo-ide/blob/main/P2_MULTITOOL.md for more info
 	})
  into 'implementation', {
    // you can also use the catalog to specify p2 repos and install units for you
    // https://github.com/equodev/equo-ide/blob/main/CATALOG.md for more info
    cdt()
    m2e()
  }
}

How it works

Much of the complexity of downloading, running, and modifying the Eclipse IDE is caused OSGi and p2. Equo IDE replaces p2 and OSGi with a simple shim called Solstice. This makes it easier and faster to build, debug, and run Eclipse-based applications.

Limitations

• Java 11+
• Gradle 6.0+
• Eclipse JDT 2022-09 (4.25) or later, though it might work on earlier versions too.