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Since Eclipse 3.5 there seems to be no option to have drop a plugin jar ( not a feature ) in the Eclipse base directory and have it picked up at next startup.

Is there any possiblity to have plain plugins jars installed in Eclipse 3.5?

Robert Munteanu
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6 Answers6

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Since the advent of p2, you should be using the dropins directory instead.

To be completely clear create "plugins" under "/dropins" and make sure to restart eclipse with the "-clean" option.

Dheeraj Bhaskar
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jamesh
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15

Simplest way - just put in the Eclipse plugins folder. You can start Eclipse with the -clean option to make sure Eclipse cleans its' plugins cache and sees the new plugin.

In general, it is far more recommended to install plugins using proper update sites.

zvikico
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    Thanks for the answer. That does not work anymore in Eclipse 3.5 . Any I'm aware of the proper way of installing plugins, just that it's not available for a plugin I'm using. – Robert Munteanu May 31 '09 at 11:38
  • @ulkas did you find a way to solve this problem ? I also using Eclipse Luna. – Kami Jan 04 '16 at 11:55
  • @Kami im sorry i dont remember anymore whether yes or no, but now im using v4.5 (mars) so probably not – ulkas Jan 08 '16 at 09:38
  • @ulkas thx the solution above worked after several times of trying :) Thx for your answer... – Kami Jan 09 '16 at 10:44
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For Eclipse Mars (I've just verified that) you to do this (assuming that C:\eclipseMarsEE is root folder of your Eclipse):

  1. Add plugins folder to C:\eclipseMarsEE\dropins so that it looks like: C:\eclipseMarsEE\dropins\plugins
  2. Then add plugin you want to install into that folder: C:\eclipseMarsEE\dropins\plugins\someplugin.jar
  3. Start Eclipse with clean option.
  4. If you are using shortcut on desktop then just right click on Eclipse icon > Properties and in Target field add: -clean like this: C:\eclipseMarsEE\eclipse.exe -clean

enter image description here

  1. Start Eclipse and verify that your plugin works.
  2. Remove -clean option from Target field.
Nenad Bulatović
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6

go to Help -> Install New Software... -> Add -> Archive.... Done.

Ohad Kravchick
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    Not for me. Always tells me that it cannot find the folder I choose. How can I find out where the plugins folder is? This is not a standard installation, so telling me where it normally is doesn't help. I am no admin on this computer, so I cannot reinstall anything, but adding plugins works when I add a remote repository. This particular plugin is only available as a .jar file. – Holger Jakobs Nov 22 '13 at 09:12
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    Nope, this will only work for `.zip` files that include `contents.jar` within the archive. – Dave Chen Aug 05 '14 at 00:49
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    And you cannot just rename the `.jar` file to `contents.jar` and put it inside a `.zip` file, right? Didn't work for me at least. – Kim Kern May 07 '19 at 14:02
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in Eclipse 4.4.1

  1. copy jar in "C:\eclipse\plugins"
  2. edit file "C:\eclipse\configuration\org.eclipse.equinox.simpleconfigurator\bundles.info"
  3. add jar info. example: com.soft4soft.resort.jdt,2.4.4,file:plugins\com.soft4soft.resort.jdt_2.4.4.jar,4,false
  4. restart Eclipse.
Kim Kern
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Jack Choi
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  • Hello, I feel like I am very close to getting my plugin to work. What do I do for the first two parameters of that statement if I do not have an online repo where my plugin gets updates from? All I have is the .jar so I do not know what to put for the "com.soft4soft.resort.jdt" Any ideas? – jose reyes Jun 19 '19 at 11:00
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This is how you can go about it:

  1. Close Eclipse
  2. Download a jar plugin (let's assume its testNG.jar)
  3. Copy testNG.jar to a certain folder (say C:\Project\resources\plugins)
  4. In your Eclipse installation folder, there is a folder named dropins (could be C:\eclipse\dropins), create a .link file in that folder, (like plugins.link)
  5. Open this file with any text editor and enter this one line:
    path=C:/Project/resources/plugins
  6. Save the file and start Eclipse.

And you are good to go!

Please do not forget to change your backward slashes in your plugins folder path to forward slashes on step 5. I used to forget and it would take my time unnecessarily.

Farai Mugaviri
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