I'm out of ideas so I'm posing the question to StackOverflow. I recently started a scala project. I setup Eclipse 3.7.2 on Windows 7 and downloaded the latest stable release of the Scala IDE 2.0.2. The problem I'm experiencing is that when the package explorer pane is pinned open in my workspace and I switch context away from Eclipse and then back to Eclipse, it takes a very long time for Eclipse to redraw itself. It can take anywhere from 2 to 10 seconds to fully redraw. I know it's related to the package explorer because I don't experience the issue at all when it's not open. I'm not sure it's specifically related to Scala IDE, but all I've been using Eclipse for recently is with Scala projects and so far I've experienced this problem with all of them.
So far I've tried optimizing my JVM settings as described in the following post. I've also tried reverting to a Java 6 JVM.
I'm open for new suggestions or advice on how to troubleshoot this problem further.
EDIT:
I've since discovered there are many views similar to package explorer in the way that they let you navigate a project via it's directory or package structure. There's the package explorer, project explorer, and navigation view. Now that I'm using the navigation view I no longer experience any performance problems mentioned in my original post. However, the question still stands: why does using package explorer have such a detrimental effect on Eclipse performance.
EDIT 2: Scratch that, even while using other "project navigation" type views I still have the problem.