During the design phase, plug-ins and fragments in your workspace are used as-is so that you can quickly test and debug. Once you reach the stage where you are satisfied with your code, you need to publish it in a form fit for delivery on the platform.
The easiest way to do so is through the 'Export Plug-ins and Fragments' Wizard. It shields you from ant scripts and does not pollute your workspace with resources generated during the build operations:
An alternate way is to build a plug-in or a fragment manually:
You can also package your plug-in(s) and fragment(s) into a feature. This lets you use the platform Install and Update Manager to deliver your feature. You can make it available on a server and publish the URL. The platform Update Manager can be used to download and install your feature.
The remaining sections describe features and how to build them.