Eclipse Usage

This articles focuses on Eclipse usage and configuration.

Line Wrapping

Line wrapping (soft-wrap as well as hard-wrap) seems to be one of Eclipse's current weakness. I hope the situation improves soon, because it is a pity that such a simple (but essential) feature is absent. In the meantime I have found the following solutions:

• Line wrapping by Eclipse works for certain types of files. For Java code, for example, you can go to Preferences->Java->Code Style->Formatter. Then click "Show..." and you will have access to line wrapping. But this is not present for C++ code via the CDT tools... I am not sure it would work with PHP files as well, and I know it does not work for plain files.

• Soft wrapping can be done via a very useful plugin. See this page for details.

Installation Features

Under Gentoo and Eclipse 3.2.1, the mirrors for the Update/Install of plugins are apparently not saved. A workaround is to select the "Automatic Mirror Selection" feature in the Preferences.

Appearance customization

Eclipse uses views and perspectives. Perspectives are in fact a set of views; many plugins come with their own views and perspectives. You can define your own perspective; however developing views is harder (you probably need to code).

Font customization is available in Preferences->General->Appearance. However some text seems to be set on a system-level, for example the font on the navigator view.