Homepage:	http://www.eclipse.org/
Download:	http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
File(s):	Windows: Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers: eclipse-jee-ganymede-SR2-win32.zip (168 MB)

Installation

• Unzip ZIP-file to an appropriate folder (C:\Program Files)
• Rename unpacked folder "eclipse" to "Eclipse_Ganymede"
• Create a desktop shortcut or quick launch icon to the executable "eclipse.exe" in the unpacked folder

Configuration

• Change start parameters in "C:\Program Files\Eclipse_Ganymede\eclipse.ini"

-showsplash
org.eclipse.platform
--launcher.XXMaxPermSize
256M
-vm
C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_13\bin\javaw.exe
-framework
plugins\org.eclipse.osgi_3.4.3.R34x_v20081215-1030.jar
-vmargs
-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5
-Xmx700m
-XX:MaxPermSize=690M

Note: Xmx and XX params must be appropriate to your available memory. If Eclipse does not start, down tune them.

• Start Eclipse using shortcut
  • In Workspace Launcher
    • point the "Workspace:" field to a new Workspace-folder like "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents\DEV\<companyname>". Better would be a very short path for the workspace directory (to avoid later problems if your project has a very deep folder hierarchy/packages), e.g. "D:\WORKSPACES\<companyname>"
    • Don't check "Use this as default..." (so it will be easier to switch between different workspaces later) later)
  • Close "Welcome" tab.

Some basic configurations

• Window - Preferences:
  • General: Show heap status
  • General - Editors - Text Editors: Show line numbers
  • General - Editors - Text Editors - Spelling - Dictionaries: Encoding: UTF-8

  • Java - Code Style - Formatter - Java Conventions [built-in] -> Use Sun Java Code Conventions

  • General - Network Connections: Manual proxy configuration
    • HTTP proxy: <company_proxy_address>, Port: <company_proxy_port>
    • Use this proxy server for SSL
    • No proxy for: add internal addresses
    • Enable proxy authentication: <username>/<password>
  • General - Workspace: Text file encoding: Other: UTF-8