Specifying a target folder for Eclipse 3.4+ plugins when installing via Software Updates

Question

After searching around I see that eclipse 3.4/3.5 now allow you to use their 'dropin' folder to manually install plugins.

This works well in a situation where you have already downloaded the feature and plugin files, however in cases where you use the Software Updates feature to simply point to a URL and download a plugin, you don't appear to have control over what folder the plugin is installed into.

Is it possible to force plugins to be installed to an arbitrary dropin folder, or otherwise export a plugin to a location so that it can be shared with other people's eclipse installations?

I'd prefer not to have to comb through the plugin info and manually determine which plugin jars to copy into a dropin folder :P

Thanks

Answer 1

The new p2 system in 3.4 is supposed to have a feature called bundle pooling that allows for shared plugins. However, I haven't used it, so I'm not sure about the particulars. I hope this at least points you in the right direction.

Answer 2

When using 3.4.1 you can still enable the "old" update manager in Preferences/ General/ Capabilities. Then you can use the extension points again. But it has been removed in 3.4.2 completely.

Answer 3

You have to remove P2 to get the old update manager.

Note: The P2 team managed to broke everything backward compatible. This tricks does not work with 3.5.

Answer 4

I think the answer in this thread and the mentioned blog post of Michael Scharf can be useful for you, although the procedure is not as simple as it should be :(