STS with pre-installed plugins

Question

Is there any way to have Springsourcetoolsuite version with custom and already preinstalled plugins? I simply would like to have some plugins already installed so that I don't have to do it manually every time when I switch to new machine or sth like that. It would be just a little bit more convenient for me :)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There is no way that you can download STS with extra plugins preconfigured. However, once you have an Eclipse/STS zip file, you can script an installation.

1. download a zipped/tarred version of STS from http://www.springsource.com/landing/best-development-tool-enterprise-java
2. Use the p2 director app http://wiki.eclipse.org/Equinox_p2_director_application to install your extra plugins. You need to know the update site and the feature id of everything you want to install.

3. Create your script, where each command will look something like this:

   targetProductFolder/eclipsec.exe -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director -repository http://download.eclipse.org/releases/helios/ -installIU org.eclipse.cdt.feature.group

Full details on how to run the director app is in the link above. Just note that you need to append .feature.group to all feature references.