Eclipse offers an integrated development environment having an extensible plug-in system. This enables Eclipse to provide all functionality on the top of its run-time system. It’s also different from other applications (where the functionality provided by plug-ins are mostly hard coded). Having the appropriate Eclipse plug is important to stay productive, since it facilitates the Java developers to seamlessly develop and implement applications. Eclipse plug-ins also helps them to implement their application on several types of application infrastructures.
A regular eclipse user has dozens of add-on installed and often struggles to keep eclipse running fast. Therefore choosing the right plugin for your everyday development environment is essential.
Below is the list of best free Eclipse plug-ins for a developer to be more productive -
Code Quality Plugins
FindBugs
FindBugs plug-in is used with eclipse IDE and it is the software
used to find bugs in Java programs. It’s free software licensed under
Lesser GNU Public License. This is one of the most popular eclipse
plugins and also available on Maven, Netbeans and IntelliJ.
Checkstyle
Checkstyle plug-ins can be integrated to IDE Eclipse and it ensures the Java code follows the coding standards.
ECLemma
ECLemma is a free tool available through Eclipse Public License
and it provides fast development and test cycles. You can use “launch”
in the code coverage mode which works like actual run/debug mode. One
can render the analysis of the code through coverage view, source
highlighting, counters and sessions.
JDepend4Eclipse
JDepend4Eclipse helps to traverse file directories and assists
in measuring the quality of design. It is an open source tool licensed
under Eclipse Public License v1.0.
PMD
PMD is a source code analyzer which helps to detect used variables and bad codes. (Update URL - http://pmd.sourceforge.net/eclipse/)
SourceHelper
SourceHelper helps to code and debug, and it also aids in providing clarity to the written code.
Structure101
Structure101 helps to influence architecture when the code is
edited, which means you can change the architecture without disrupting
the code.
Text Editor Plugins
AnyEdit Tools
The plug-in helps to add new editor to output consoles, toolbar,
and it also help to import and export data. It is licensed under
Eclipse Public License v1.0.
Eclim
Eclim helps to bring Eclipse functionality to one of the best
editors - Vim, wherein development can be done in various languages and
it also provides bug fixing provisions. It is released under GPLV3.
Eclipse-rbe
Eclipse-rbe is used for editing Java resources and its features
include warnings for missing values, sorted keys, conversion from/to
Unicode etc. It is licensed under GNU library or LGPL.
Dependency Management
Apache IvyDE
Apache IvyDE is an Eclipse plug-in which helps to integrate
Apache Ivy’s feature of dependency management to Eclipse. Additionally,
it helps to manage dependencies in ‘ivy.xml’. It can be used with
plug-in WTP and Ant.
M2eclipse (Maven Plugin)
M2eclipse helps to manage both simple and multi module projects,
and Maven integration for Eclipse (M2eclipise) helps to launch maven
from Eclipse. It provides features such as dependency management and
automatic downloading. You may also want to checkout Some Best Free Maven Plug-ins for Developers
Version Control Integration Plugins
Subclipse
Subclipse is a SVN plug-in which offers support for subversion
of Eclipse IDE and it is licensed under EPL 1.0. Subeclipse 1.6.x
supports ColabNet Merge Client. Subclipse provides easy interface to use
the features.
EGit
EGit plug-in provides support, synchronizes view, reading for
.git/ exclude files, provides rebasing and has streamlined commands for
pulling and pushing.
MercurialEclipse
MercurialEclipse is one of the active Version Control System
which gives you access on registration. It is a reliable plug-in which
provides cloning repositories, push-pull synchronization and enables
easy rollback.
P4Eclipse
P4Eclipse seamlessly integrates the strengths of Perforce's
version management system with Eclipse's. P4Eclipse provides a
developer-oriented set of features from within the Eclipse Team
framework that support a wide range of Agile and traditional development
workflows.
Framework Development
Spring Tool Suite
Spring Tool Suite provides development environment and tools
such as XML file wizards and graphical spring configuration editor,
which can be used for easy development.
Spring IDE
Spring IDE helps in developing Spring Application and provides
interface to use the graphical editing framework. What’s more, Spring
IDE display graphs of relationships and beans using configuration files.
(Update site - http://springide.org/updatesite
Hibernator
Hibernator helps to create or update schema, run hibernate
queries and create mapping documents. The user can synchronize a Java
class to a related mapped file.
JbossTools
JbossTools 3.2x support JBoss, Hibernate, Drools, XHTML, Seam
etc. (Update site -
http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/updates/JBossTools-2.1.2.GA)
Continuous Integration Related Plugins
Hudson Status
Hudson Status is a simple plug-in that displays the status
(red/green) of a application on Hudson build server. Hudson is a very
powerful continuous integration server, that is used in many large
software development projects.
Sonar Plugin
Sonar Plug-in for Eclipse provides powerful integration of Sonar
with Eclipse. It highlights code quality problems as we browse the
code. Since the code quality standards definition is centralized on
Sonar server, it ensures all developers are following same quality
standards. Sonar is a open source platform used for centrally
controlling the source code quality of software projects.
Other Utility Plugins
ASM - Bytecode Outline plugin
ASM Bytecode Outline plugin shows disassembled bytecode of
current Java editor or class file, allows bytecode compare for
Java/class files and shows ASMifier code for current bytecode. You can
install ASM from Eclipse Update Manager. It allows bytecode comparison
to Java class. (Update site - http://download.forge.objectweb.org/eclipse-update/)
Mylyn - Task Management
Mylyn has a task focused interface and it provides a task
management tool to the developers. Moreover, it helps to integrate rich
editing tools and monitor activities.
Eclipse Launcher
Eclipse launcher is written in Delphi 6 and it helps to launch Eclipse IDE with configuration.
FileSync
FileSync is licensed under Eclipse Public License v1.0 and it is
a file synchronization tool used for creating, deleting and mapping
files.
Log4E
Log4E helps to use logger easily without getting bound to a
special logging framework. Also, you can define your own preferences for
logging templates.
All in all, plug-ins allows Eclipse to be coded
in other languages. Eclipse plug-ins is indispensable nowadays, since
it greatly streamlines Java applications and reduces the complexity of
Java. However, installing too many plug-ins can slow down Eclipse. Hence
you require selecting the plug-ins judiciously. There
are a number of other productivity plug-ins too, besides the ones
mentioned. Checkstyle, JBoss Tools and Jadclipse are three of them. Do
let us know if you have used some other plug-ins which you were
impressed with.