No response after installing my own eclipse plugin

Question

Recently I have developed an eclipse plugin, I exported my plugin by this method "Export" > "Deployable plug-ins and fragments" , after that I got my .jar plugin , and put it into ~/eclipse/plugins , my plugin has shown successfully in my eclipse. However some of my workmates have no response after they put it into ~/eclipse/plugin , some of them can get it while some can't. Especially the ones who use adt-bundle to install my plugin have no response. I have changed my build jar method to: "Export" > "JAR file" , but failed. Is my build jar method wrong or my install method jar wrong?

Answer 1

First guess is that your colleagues have some dependency issues that prevents the plugin from loading. This is easy to check:

"Help" -> "About" -> "Installation details", click on tab "configuration". You will see a list containing entries such as;

org.apache.commons.io (2.0.1.v201105210651) "Apache Commons IO" [Resolved]
org.apache.commons.lang (2.6.0.v201205030909) "Apache Commons Lang" [Resolved]
org.apache.commons.logging (1.1.1.v201101211721) "Apache Commons Logging Plug-in"    [Resolved]
org.apache.felix.gogo.command (0.10.0.v201209301215) "Apache Felix Gogo Command" [Active]

Search for the id of your plugin. A couple of things can happen here:

1. You dont find your plugin at all in the list. This means it was never found at all. Copying the jar to the plugins dir is not the recommended way to install a plugin and it can fail. The best alternative is to create an update site, and let your colleagues install it from that. Regardless of the issue, this is something you should do. Don't worry, its really easy and can be done pretty much completely by an Eclipse wizard.
2. The plugin is in the list, but has state "[Installed]". This means it was found but something prevented it from starting. Usually this is due do missing dependencies. See here .
3. The plugin has state "[Resolved]". All dependencies are ok, but for some reason it hasn't been started. Perhaps you used a menu/view that isn't enabled in the ADT perspective?
4. State "[Active]" means it is currently running. If it cant be seen it could be that its UI parts aren't enabled or visible.

Also see my answer here

Regardless of the issue and the solution, I would strongly suggest you install the plugin by creating an update site. That is the only guaranteed way it will work. Dependency issues will be seen immediately. Copying to plugin folder is not the correct way and dropins folder aren't guaranteed to work. (I have the feeling it is deprecated, but cant find offical source for that)