Finally I’m happy to announce the long expected extension of the EPP Wizard for proxies. Now the EPP Wizard provides an extended P2 installer which allows you to edit the proxy-related settings. The extended P2 installer has a dialog where you can select a proxy and enter the credentials for it. This feature should be used in cases where the proxy needs full authentication (user name and password). For all other use cases, the P2 installer works fine. The new dialog looks very similar to the dialog “Edit Proxy Entry” on the “Network Connections” preference page of Eclipse. The proxy support is already contributed to the P2 installer with the following bug.

To use the new proxy functionality select the check box “use manual proxy settings”.

Extended P2 Installer

Than the “Settings…” button is activated. Select this button to open the proxy dialog. On the dialog page you can select a proxy schema and enter all needed information for it.

Proxy Settings Dialog

If you encounter problems or have any ideas how to improve the functionality, please don’t be shy and send us suggestions through our feedback form on our download site.

Tags: epp, galileo, p2

Previously, I blogged about the current state of the Eclipse Packaging Project (EPP) Wizard. I have good news, the EPP wizard is now officially available.

The wizard has been embedded in our own company download site under the Customize Download button. If you start on the Eclipse Foundation download site and chose to download your packages from EclipseSource, you have the option to download an unmodified package from the Cloud but also the possibility to use the EPP Wizard to create your own download. If you select the latter option, the wizard will be opened with the package content you already selected on the Eclipse download site. If you are satisfied with your selection just go to the finish page of the wizard and select the packages you want to install.

Can you spot the difference in the screenshots bellow?

Install new Software Dialog with Update Site Management

Install new Software Dialog without Update Site Management

We found out that some installations created with the EPP Wizard don’t have the p2 UI for management of repositories (update sites). The available update sites are shown under Preferences > Install/Update > Available Software Sites and under Help > Install New Software… but you don’t have the possibility to edit them. This issue was fixed last week but if you have an older installation and the update sites management functionalty is missing you have to change the start options of the bundle org.eclipse.equinox.ds to get it. The start options associated with bundles are saved into the bundles.info located under eclipse/configuration/org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator/bundles.info (in this case eclipse is the directory of your eclipse installation). Just change the start options of the bundle org.eclipse.equinox.ds from “4, false” to “2, true” and restart your eclipse.

The EPP Download Wizard integrates Yoxos OnDemand as external service provider. Yoxos OnDemand is a free Eclipse download and update service we provide. Yoxos OnDemand provides access to additional third party content which is not available from the EPP Wizard. However, from the EPP Wizard, you can continue your download with Yoxos without losing time because your selection will be sent to Yoxos.

If you encounter other problems or have ideas how to improve the wizard please send us feedback through our feedback form on our download site.

Tags: epp, galileo, p2

The EPP Wizard is now available as a preview from our website: http://epp.eclipsesource.com.

The idea behind the EPP Wizard is to simplify the installation process of dynamic downloads. With the EPP Wizard, you can easily choose what you want to include in your Eclipse installation and install this selection.

The wizard itself consists of four pages. The first three pages contain the components that can be installed and the last page provides a configured p2 installer to install the selected components. To navigate through the pages of the EPP Wizard, use the buttons placed on the bottom of each wizard page:

EPP Wizard Navigation

The first page of the EPP Wizard contains downloads for Java, Java EE, RCP, C/C++ and Dynamic Languages. You can select a main group or expand it and select more specific subcomponents of this group (e.g., the Java group contains subcomponents for Java and mobile Java development).

EPP Wizard Navigation

The selected components are then displayed on the right of the page under ‘My Selection. The second page of the wizard contains downloads for DataBase Development, Mobile Device Development, Modeling and SOA Development. The last page of the wizard provides different tools. We were not sure how to arrange the downloads so we decided on the first page to place the programming language extensions of Eclipse. On the second page, the more abstract extensions and on the third page the various tools. Feedback about the arrangement of the downloads would be appreciated.

On the last page of the EPP Wizard, you can choose how to install your selection. Currently, there are two possibilities, both of them use the P2 Installer. The P2 Installer can be launched as Java Web Start application or you can download the P2 Installer and start it from your local machine. The provided P2 Installer is already configured with a set of p2 repositories and your selection list, and you only need to select the install location. The last wizard page contains also a section with external download providers. From this section you will be able to choose an external download provider and you will be redirected to the site of the selected external download provider. Your available selection will be transfered to the chosen external download provider. So you don’t need to select the already selected downloads again and can continue with your download.

EPP Wizard Navigation

Note that the P2 Installer fails sometimes to instal selected components. There is bug 280205 open that covers this issue. The problem happens when p2 repositories are used which contain compressed artifacts and the selected download is very large.

Enjoy.

So don’t wait, try it now! Feedback is welcome!

Tags: epp, galileo, p2