Essential Tools in Eclipse - Java
Lets kick off this blog with some codey codey stuff! First up, some Eclipse goodness!
Eclipse is one of the best tools to design and create some great Java programs, its free and best of all there are some great free plug-ins to help you!
These are just some of my favourite ones that you can install for free, I've saved hours of time with these. First of all however get yourself a copy of the new Eclipse 3.7 http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/. The Eclipse Classic edition is a good choice for now.
Now on with the tools! To install these you need to go into Help -> Install New Software in Eclipse and add these addresses into the location. Some of them are downloads, and give instructions on how to extract and install them manually.
ObjectAid http://www.objectaid.com/update - Generates class diagrams from .java files, extremely useful for creating quick class diagrams based on your written code.
FatJar http://kurucz-grafika.de/fatjar - Creates executable .jar files with ease, with options like One-Jar!
JAutoDoc http://jautodoc.sourceforge.net/update/ - Automatically comments on all Java code, it also tries to guess what the comments will be based on the name of the method. Probably the most useful aspect though is the consistency you will get from the commenting blocks.
Subclipse http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.6.x - SVN Plugin, there are a few different SVN plugins but I always settled on this one as it does crash as often! Great for backing up your code on an subversion server.
LogBack http://logback.qos.ch/download.html - Coloured console in eclipse. This plugin took me ages to find, it was key in debugging a console program I had, it recognizes key words from the System.out.print and highlights those specific lines.
Eclipse-check-style Integration http://eclipse-cs.sf.net/update/ - Check source code style. This gives you an output of how good your code is based on things like best coding practices, so a method that is way too long might be flagged for example.
Eclipse Metrics http://metrics.sourceforge.net/update - Counts source code lines and lots of other interesting statistics!
Having recently finished my computer science degree with a heavy emphasis on Java and Eclipse, I can say with confidence they have attributed to a lot of success! My favourites being JAutoDoc, ObjectAid and Subclispe:). Enjoy!