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If you install the 64 bit version of Java, install the 64 bit version of Eclipse. Otherwise, install the 32 bit version of both. While 32 bit Java is perfectly adequate for most applications and it runs on a 64 bit operating system, pretty much everything is transitioning to 64 bit today just because of the memory size of new machines.When you add the M2E plugin for Maven support in Eclipse, it will install a built in version of Maven. Eclipse allows you to select for each individual Maven build an external install of Maven. You may want to download onto your machine specific versions of Maven required for certain old and new Maven projects. Some projects will only run on Maven 2 (at least without being converted) while others may only run on Maven 3.
Download and install the latest version of Eclipse. Go to http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/ and choose the Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers. Again, even if you have a Windows 64 bit desktop you probably want to choose the 32 bit application installation.
You need to add the Maven Eclipse plugin and probably Eclipse support for the Subversion and Git source control systems. If you work with projects that use AspectJ, you should add the AJDT plugin. Go to Help - Eclipse Marketplace. Type a search term like "maven", "subversion", "git", or "aspectj".
There are two versions of Subversion support, Subversive and Subclipse. The Subversive plugin has become the standard choice. The first time you use SVN you will be prompted to install a system specific connector. The SVN Kit connector is 100% pure Java and available on all systems.
After installing the M2E plugin, you can go to Window - Preferences - Maven - Installations and configure external directories that contain alternate versions of Maven you may want to run in batch mode to build different projects. The interactive and Eclipse integration features of M2E do what they do and are largely version agnostic.
The version of Eclipse current at the time this was last updated is Luna. It comes with Maven support built in by default, but the support for Subversion is now an option because Git has become more popular. The "Subversive" project is part of Eclipse and can be installed from Help - Install New Software. Software from third parties can be installed with Help - Eclipse Marketplace.
At Yale, you should:
- After installing "Subversive" from New Software, the first time you try to use SVN (by opening the SVN Repository Exploring perspective), Eclipse will pop up a window asking you to select an interface library option. Choose the lastest version of SVNKit (a pure Java solution for communication with the SVN server) rather than using external command tools.
- Install the "JBoss Tools" for your release of Eclipse using Eclipse Marketplace. Make sure you select Tools and not Developer Studio, which is a complete replacement version of Eclipse.
- If you are using Tomcat too, install Mongrel to get Tool Bar icons to start and stop Tomcat.
- Optionally you might want to install the Spring Tool Suite for your release of Eclipse.
There are several configuration options that are best set immediately, before loading any projects. Go to Window - Preferences. In the Team area, select Ignored Resources. This exposes a list of file extensions and directory names of things you do not want to be checked into SVN. Click the Add Pattern... button and add "target", the name of the directory that Maven uses as a work area to collect the compiler output and generate the artifact. If you want to use Yale recommendations (at least for this workspace) that you only check in the Maven POM and not check in the Eclipse project files, then add the three Eclipse names ".project", ".classpath", and ".settings" (note that these names begin with a period but they are names not extensions so do not put a wildcard in front of them).
This is also a good time to go to Java - Installed JREs. Eclipse automatically adds whatever version of Java is the primary (generally the lastest) on this operating system. If you want to build for a different release (CAS is typically one release back from current) then after you have actually installed that version of Java on the machine add it to this list of Java versions Eclipse knows about and set the checkbox so it is the default.One last point. Eclipse has been known to go into a very long loop screwing up validation of the HTML and JSP pages. To avoid this, you may want to click Validation and click the "Suspend all validators" checkbox
An application is built with the latest version of Maven, but by convention at Yale the Installer project (that copies the application to JBoss or Tomcat using Ant) runs on an old Maven 2.2.1. To enable the same processing in the Sandbox, download that version of Maven, put it in some directory, and then in the Eclipse Preferences select Maven - Installations and add that directory to the list of Maven versions that Eclipse knows about. When you create a Run Configuration for the Installer, you will select this Maven 2.2.1.
The JBoss Tools need to locate the directory where JBoss is installed. You can do this manually, but Eclipse JBoss Tools can configure it for you. Go to Preferences - JBoss Tools - JBoss Runtime Detection (in Luna you may have to click it, click something else, then click it again). Click the Add button and then browse to the parent directory of the jboss server (if JBoss was installed as /opt/jboss/jboss-eap-6.1 then browse to /opt/jboss). If you click search, then JBoss will configure any JBoss or Tomcat servers found under the directory you just configured. If you have multiple versions of JBoss, put them all under the same directory and they will all be located.