Personal Plugin in Eclipse

I own a plug开发者_StackOverflow社区in for eclipse, but I want to use it at work. Is there a way to make eclipse use plugin files without it affecting other people using the same central version of Eclipse? Maybe some custom preferences?

Thanks.

EDIT: Started a bounty. Please specify a step-by-step solution to this, as I'm not very experienced with the inner-workings of eclipse.

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Depends on the version of Eclipse.

I find it very very strange that you are all sharing the same instance of Eclipse from the network rather than having a local installation.

If that is indeed the case, the dirtiest bypass is to have your plugin sources in the workspace, create an Eclipse plugin development project, have your plugin enabled in that runtime project, and then use the runtime eclipse instance rather than the original as your primary.

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It's not strange at all to have such a setup (eg we had this at our university, and the disk space for each user was not large enough to install your own version of Eclipse there.)

An easy way to achieve this is the dropins folder (I assume you're using Eclipse 3.5 Galileo):

1. Create a dropins folder (eg on Linux/Mac: "~/dropins", on Windows: "C:\dropins")
2. Start Eclipse with the following command line parameter:

-Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory="C:\dropins"

Now just start it from the command line like this (cd to your eclipse installation first, then):

On Linux/Mac:

./eclipse -Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory="~/dropins"

On Windows:

eclipse.exe -Dorg.eclipse.equinox.p2.reconciler.dropins.directory="C:\dropins"

On Windows, you can also do this by right-clicking the Eclipse icon, and add the command line parameter in the dialog.

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Yes, it is. There are several ways, which mostly depends on the version you are using of Eclipse. But you can always install your own Eclipse locally. It is always possible to use a own set of plug-in loaded form a separate directory. Which platform are you on? Which version of Eclipse are you using?

As for Eclipse programming I use The Java Developer's Guide to Eclipse (2nd edition (which still covers all current v3.# very good)). It has a nice description on how multiple configurations can be used.

See part I - Chapter 'Managing Your Eclipse Environment'; section 'Managing Your Configuration' (page 191-195).

Be careful as the Eclipse functionality regarding 'Install new Software', is one of the peaces that has been most changed between the different 3.# version (at least for what I noticed).

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i'd go for the simplest choice:

1. install another Eclipse, but the same version.

2. install all features that the shared Eclipse has (you may use the same update sites as the shared one, and update).
   verify that your project opens correctly.

3. install your own plugin.
   again, verify that your project opens correctly.

4. verify that your project opens correctly with the shared instance.

IMHO, any config hack will get into trouble some day.