How to launch Eclipse Theia

In this article, we provide an overview on how to get started with Eclipse Theia. If you’re new to Eclipse Theia, please check this blog post for an introduction and this FAQ about Eclipse Theia.

There are several ways to launch/run Theia, which can seem confusing when getting started. Remember, Theia is a platform to build tools, so we can’t strictly “launch Theia” itself. Instead, we launch products based on Theia. Theia-based products can be deployed in the cloud and accessed as browser applications, or deployed as desktop applications using Electron.

We’ll describe the options on how to launch products based on Theia below. These options are arranged in increasing order of customization complexity:

Option 0: Use Theia IDE
Option 1: Use the preconfigured docker image (‘cause containers are great)
Option 2: Try online in an example tool based on Eclipse Theia
Option 3: Build your own tool based on Theia
Option 4: Clone, build, and run from the sources (for contributors)

Option 0: Use Theia IDE

The Theia IDE is a state-of-the-art code development tool built on the Theia Platform. You can download and install the Theia IDE or test it online, allowing you to benefit from Theias capabilities with ease. More details can be found in this blog post.

Option 1: Use the preconfigured docker image

You can run any Theia-based application including the Theia IDE in a container using preconfigured Docker images, see the documentation on how to get the Docker image for the Theia IDE

Option 2: Try online in an example tool based on Eclipse Theia

The coffee editor example showcases how to build domain-specific tools using the Theia Platform. It offers features like a diagram editor and a code generator. This example can be tried online and serves as a blueprint for creating similar tools.

Option 3: Build your own tool based on Theia

You can easily create your own Theia-based tool or IDE within minutes. The Theia documentation provides a guide on composing applications. Getting started with Theia as a platform is simple, requiring minimal setup, and you can easily customize your application by adding or removing extensions. To understand how to create and extend these applications, refer to this documentation.

Option 4: Clone, build, and run from the sources (for contributors)

Instead of using npm packages to build your application on, you can build the Theia Platform directly from its source code. Follow the steps on GitHub as described in the Developing.md guide. By doing this, you can modify Theia sources and see changes immediately, which is beneficial for contributors or anyone wanting a deeper understanding of Theia.

Conclusion and more

In this article, we have described four options on how to run Eclipse Theia. If you are interested in using Eclipse Theia to create your own tool or to migrate an existing tool to the cloud, have a look at our service offering for support around Eclipse Theia, web-based tools or tools in general and please get in contact with us!