choose a tool to create/maintain custom eclipse distrib

Question

I would like to settle on a tool to create/maintain my custom eclipse distrib (starting with next 3.6). By studying previous questions main contenders seem:

• Pulse
• Yoxos
• Google Workspace Mechanic: recently announced
• doing it yourself in eclipse

Has anyone experiences in several of them and can comment on advantages etc?? My wishes are:

• by 'distrib' I mean: plugins, settings & preferences...
• be able to use the same eclipse setup in several workstations
• MAYBE sharing with other members of the team
• works across 3.5 and next 3.6: I don't know if it's possible. And anyway I would not object to customize the distrib once per new eclipse major release

Answer 1

Same plugins: I would just create update site with my plugins, or composite update site pointing to update sites with plugins you're interested in. Or you can simply use Eclipse Marketplace, which can create such update site for you from plugins you mark as favorite. Yoxos and Pulse should also work fine.

Same settings / preferences: Workspace Mechanic from Google may do the job for you. Beware: it is new project, which was just released into public. Disclaimer: I have no real experience with it :-) Pulse Team Edition should also be able to help (see previous disclaimer though).

Answer 2

I was in search for something like that myself (but more driven by the shared team approach), and I highly recommend the new Yoxos 5 Beta. It features synchronization of plugins and settings, while all your other suggestions only synchronize either plugins or settings, if I remember correctly.

In addition to your list, it might also be interesting to have your own mirrored update site, so its easier to control which version of which plugin can be installed at all (that also being more important in a corporate environment). See Eclipse help for details on how to create that mirrored site.

Answer 3

Basically I was looking for the similar plugin or product. Pulse and Yoxos both supports plugin sync and workspace preference sync which is what i was mostly expecting.

Pulse

Pros

• Pulse Explorer let you create new profile easily and share it
• Eclipse installation folder is configurable and can be used as standalone installation for each profile

Cons

• I felt sharing workspace preferences is complicated
• Plugins repo search is slow
• Replaced default update / install menus with Yoxos update
• Very very buggy

** Yoxos **

Pros

• I felt importing workspace preferences and save it to your online profile is easy
• Search the plugins from public repositories is cool and very easy
• Single eclipse installation is shared between all profiles

Cons

• Yoxos Customizer is very complex (at least in my experience)
• Custom added repositories are not synced with server

Workspace Mechanic Its very cool, more flexible plugin, but will sync only workspace preferences across eclipse installations

Personally I'm settled with Yoxos now.

Also refer

http://www.poweredbypulse.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29

Answer 4

I think Sonatype Maven Studio leverages Maven to include Eclipse provisioning.