Configuring PDE

Although PDE is part of the platform SDK, it may or may not be present in your particular installation. If it is not, it is easy to add by using the platform Update Manager. Once PDE is installed, it will configure itself with reasonable default values to be ready to use. However, some setup is recommended to create a clean working environment.

Run-time instance configuration

The most important variable you can set in PDE is the run-time workbench instance path. This is the path of the workbench installation that will be used to run and debug your plug-ins.

The default choice of the run-time workbench is the host workbench i.e. the workbench you use for your development. This value is quite acceptable when you want to create plug-ins that will install into a platform configuration that is similar to your host setup.   

However, it is possible to use different workbench instances for development and run-time. For example, you might have a stable platform configuration that you use as a development tool, but wish to deploy your plug-ins in a different version.  The run-time instance may be based on a new (and possibly less stable) technology, or may incorporate a different set of plug-ins than your host configuration. 

In both cases, it is important to use different workspaces for your host and run-time platform.  Your host workspace location (where all your projects will go on your hard disk) is set when you launch your host development platform.  To set up the location of your run-time workspace, choose the "Target Platform" page in the Window>Preferences dialog.

PDE preferences - "Target Platform" page

When you set the application location and press the Reload button, the list of plug-ins and fragments on the page will fill up with the discovered external plug-ins. By default, all these plug-ins will be invisible to PDE. You can make them visible by enabling them individually or pressing Select All button.

Note that workspace plug-ins and enabled external plug-ins will be used by PDE to resolve Java classes and plug-in dependencies.  In the case where a workspace plug-in has the same id as an external plug-in, the workspace plug-in masks its external counterpart.

 
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