Java Tutorial - Java Script :
Installing Eclipse
Eclipse can be downloaded from http://www.eclipse.org. For Windows platforms, it is downloaded as a compressed ZIP archive (.zip file). Note that this file is large, over 50 MB. To install Eclipse, simply extract the .zip file into the c:\eclipse folder. Navigate to the c:\eclipse folder and click on Eclipse.exe to launch Eclipse the first time. A message should appear that says “Please wait completing install...” and shortly the IDE will be started with the Welcome page in the editor window.
NOTE Eclipse does not install any items into the Windows Start menu or onto the desktop. This must be done manually. Adding an icon to the Windows Desktop is easily done by right-clicking on the Desktop and choosing New ➪ Shortcut and then browsing to eclipse.exe.
Eclipse is shown in Figure 4.5. The Eclipse Welcome screen provides a means of navigating and exploring the documentation that is provided with Eclipse. The documentation includes a tutorial on getting started and information on perspectives. Perspectives is the term used by Eclipse to refer to a specific customizable arrangement of windows and tools within the IDE. After the initial installation, there are perspectives for Java programming, and building Eclipse add-ons or plug-ins.
Before moving on with Eclipse, you need to make some configuration changes.When Eclipse is installed, it defaults to using the Java Runtime Environment instead of the JDK. Eclipse has its own Java compiler built into the IDE and so does not need the JDK to compile. However, you want to ensure that Eclipse is using the JDK to avoid any other potential problems, so you need to change the Eclipse configuration slightly by following these steps:
1. Choose Window ➪ Preferences from the Workbench menu bar.
2. Open the Java node of navigation tree on the left side of the new window.
3. Select the installed JRE’s node of the tree.
4. Select the Add... button on the right.
5. For JRE Type select Standard VM.
6. For JRE Name enter JDK 1.4.1 (or whichever JDK you are using).
7. The JRE Home directory should be set the same as the JAVA_HOME directory for the JDK.
This is the base directory where the JDK is installed. On my system this is c:\jdk1.4.1. You may also want to examine the Workbench node of the tree and check to make sure that the box next to Perform build automatically on resource modification is checked.
