Disabling Eclipse modules/plugins and multiple workspaces?

[Jon Brasted]

Hi.

I use Eclipse 3.1 and it bugs me how Eclipse takes so long to start up. The splash screen loads and does not disappear for about 10 seconds, while all the modules are loaded. Is it at all possible to disable some to make Eclipse quicker to start up?


Is at all possible to have multiple 'workspaces' open at the same time within the same instance of Eclipse, much like with Netbeans? With Netbeans, you can have multiple projects within different directories (not just same parent directory) open at the same time using 'Mount Filesystem'. Is anything like this possible with Eclipse?


Many thanks for taking the time to read these questions and if you reply,
Jon

[Arun Subbu]

Hi Jon,
We also started using Eclipse 3.1 very recently. In 3.1, by default, if you open your project, it refreshes the project and builds it. But you can disable that option. By that way, you save some time. Regarding opening multiple worksapces in one instance, 3.1 has problem. I have posted it to this forum. See my post. I heard it was possible in 3.0 but it seems 3.1 has a problem.

Hope this helps.

[Carlos Valcarcel]

Originally posted by Jon Brasted:

Is at all possible to have multiple 'workspaces' open at the same time within the same instance of Eclipse, much like with Netbeans? With Netbeans, you can have multiple projects within different directories (not just same parent directory) open at the same time using 'Mount Filesystem'. Is anything like this possible with Eclipse?


Many thanks for taking the time to read these questions and if you reply,
Jon

Eclipse let's you switch workspaces, but not have multiple ones open at the same time within one Eclipse process. That has come up as a complaint on a few occasions. What you can do is open multiple Eclipse processes and have each one point to a different workspace.

Carlos
[ February 08, 2005: Message edited by: Carlos Valcarcel ]

[Steven Bell]

If you go to 'help > software updates > manage configuration' you can disable some of the plugins, but I think you can only disable the ones that you installed through the software updates wizard.

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Most plugins are "lazy-loaded," in any event. The amount of effort that's gone into designing the Eclipse plugin mechanism so that plugin code isn't loaded until absolutely needed is very impressive. For example, just because a plugin adds a button to a visible toolbar, and you can see the button, doesn't mean the plugin has even been initialized yet, or any of the code for the button has been loaded!

[Ilja Preuss]

Originally posted by Jon Brasted:
Is at all possible to have multiple 'workspaces' open at the same time within the same instance of Eclipse, much like with Netbeans? With Netbeans, you can have multiple projects within different directories (not just same parent directory) open at the same time using 'Mount Filesystem'. Is anything like this possible with Eclipse?

Yes, you don't even need multiple workspaces for that. An Eclipse project can reside wherever you want, just tell it when creating the project. You can even move it later on by using the refactoring menu on the project.

[Carlos Valcarcel]

Originally posted by Jon Brasted:
Hi.

I use Eclipse 3.1 and it bugs me how Eclipse takes so long to start up. The splash screen loads and does not disappear for about 10 seconds, while all the modules are loaded. Is it at all possible to disable some to make Eclipse quicker to start up?


Is at all possible to have multiple 'workspaces' open at the same time within the same instance of Eclipse, much like with Netbeans? With Netbeans, you can have multiple projects within different directories (not just same parent directory) open at the same time using 'Mount Filesystem'. Is anything like this possible with Eclipse?


Many thanks for taking the time to read these questions and if you reply,
Jon

Q1:
To load fewer plug-ins: check your Preferences->Workbench->Startup and Shutdown to make sure that the plug-ins you have installed aren't loading themselves at startup time. I found that MyEclipse loads a large number of plug-ins at startup time.

Q2:
I have not seen multiple workspaces open within one instance of Eclipse. You can however open multiple instances of Eclipse to view the various workspaces. Yes, that can be annoying based on how you have laid out your development effort among your teammates.

Carlos
[ February 09, 2005: Message edited by: Carlos Valcarcel ]

[Ko Ko Naing]

Sometimes the terminology used in Eclipse are pretty ambiguous... I can't even differentiate between projects and workspaces clearly, though I have been working with Eclipse about four months...

It seems that I understand, when someone explains to me about the difference between them... But I am still confused the usage...

[Jon Brasted]

This is what I think the difference is...

Project is a folder in which a collection of classes (and source code) reside.

Workspace is a folder in which a collection of projects reside.
[ February 11, 2005: Message edited by: Jon Brasted ]

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I agree with John's defintion. One refinement:
A workspace is the set of project and preferences accessible from Eclipse. You can have multiple workspaces if you open Eclipse with different data folders.

[Ko Ko Naing]

Originally posted by Jeanne Boyarsky:
You can have multiple workspaces if you open Eclipse with different data folders.

Jeanne,
In this case, I guess we need to open multiple instances of Eclipse, right?

[Jon Brasted]

That's correct.

[Ilja Preuss]

There is also a "Switch workspace..." action in the File menu.