How do you manage growing eclipse configurations?

Question

I use eclipse for quite a lot of work, including:

• multiple "utility" projects that include code that most of my java work makes use of
• various plugin-related projects that I sync and use periodically (eg: the Git plugin)
• plugin projects I'm actually developing
• the occasional pydev / non-java project
• etc...

It is becoming quite difficult to keep all these things straight, particularly since I never need to use them all at once. I've tried using Mylyn (and I'm trying it again) but in the past it has caused eclipse to run extremely slow, and I am notoriously horrible at remembering to tell mylyn that I've switched tasks, so it tends to learn very odd (and largely useless) sets of resources.

I've considered using multiple workspaces, but that is problematic when multiple projects need to exist in multiple workspaces, and when I need to synchronize the eclipse metadata directories across workspaces.

What is the best way to manage complex working environments in eclipse? Other development environments aren't a viable option because there aren't any sane alternatives when it comes to developing eclipse plugins (and that is a requirement).

(I think a very similar question was asked a month or two ago, but I haven't been able to find it...)

Answer 1

You want to use "Working Sets".

Answer 2

It isn't quite clear to me what your need is. But have you tried using working sets in the Package Explorer?

Open the Package Explorer view, open its menu, and Select Working Set. That lets you give a name to a subset of all the projects loaded in your workspace.

Switch working sets using the package Explorer menu. Use working sets to limit the scope of Search, errors, problems, etc.

Define as many working sets as you need to group your projects. A project can be part of any number of working sets.

Answer 3

I would recommend using different workspaces, and then adding the common projects to each workspace (you can specify the location of the project to be outside of the workspace). I believe this will work, but I haven't tried it, so I can't be sure.

As @JesperE and @Dennis S suggested, working sets will help you organize your projects, but they may not make eclipse run any faster, since the projects will all still be loaded into the workspace.

Answer 4

Here's a screencast about working sets -- this does look like the right answer.

http://www.peterfriese.de/eclipse-working-sets-part-i/