How do you build a simple Eclipse editor with a select set of plugins?

Question

Does anyone have a tutorial for building a custom Eclipse IDE with only a select set of plugins?

I am assuming I would need: eclipse.exe some plugins from the plugins directory, some folders from the features directory.

My goal is to only include the basic text editor and maybe a couple of other utilities.

(Yes, I could just use notepad/textpad but there is a project I am working on where a "lighter" version of Eclipse would be useful).

Answer 1

The Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) is meant exactly for this - building applications that are based on Eclipse without including the whole IDE.

Here are a lot of resources about it

Here is an example of an editor based on RCP

Answer 2

Create a product configuration file (New -> Other -> Plug-in Development -> Product Configuration).

You can base the product on either plug-ins or features (if you want both, go with features, you'll get the features and their included plug-ins). You define the product or application to launch on startup and there are options for splash screens and branding.

As an example you can also create a new plug-in project and in the wizard say yes to "Would you like to create a rich client application". You can then choose a template.

You can export this product from the UI and it will automatically take care of including the executables for you. You can also build it headlessly (see the help) which will require the deltapack (3.4.2 version is here) to get the launchers.