Minimal eclipse-like application

For some of my applications I need to create a minimal eclipse like application. Something that uses a workspace, has preferences, help, p2, logger and the look and feel of eclipse. Yet I do not want JDT or any other programming language support. The question is: how would a minimal setup for such an application look like?

Source code for this tutorial is available on github as a single zip archive, as a Team Project Set or you can browse the files online.

Step 1: create a plug-in and a feature

As products generally should be feature based we first create an empty plug-in project named com.codeandme.eclipse.minimal and a feature com.codeandme.eclipse.minimal.feature that contains this project. Simple as that.

Step 2: create the product

Create a new Product Configuration named Minimal.product in your product plug-in.

On the Overview tab create a new Product Definition using the button on the righthand side. Select a nice Product Name and a unique Product ID. To use the same application as eclipse select org.eclipse.ui.ide.workbench.

Afterwards define your product to be feature based instead of the default plug-in based selection.

Switch to the Contents tab and add

• org.eclipse.e4.rcp
• org.eclipse.platform
• com.codeandme.eclipse.minimal.feature

Hit Add Required to resolve additionally needed features. When you add features manually they usually are referenced by name and version number. You should get rid of the version information by selecting such features and removing the version string that can be found under Properties.... To depend on specific versions for your build use target definitions.

Save your product and test it by selecting Launch an Eclipse Application on the Overview tab. From there you can also use the export wizard to package your application.

If you do get an error 'No application id has been found' then you quite likely forgot to add your plug-in to your feature.