Groovy-Eclipse 2.5.1 New and Noteworthy

The 2.5.1 release is about a month after the 2.5.0 release, which as been a shorter release cycle than normal. Because of this, there have been fewer enhancements compared to previous releases. That being said, we have focussed on our DSL descriptor support: fixing a few bugs, increasing performance, and ensuring that some standard DSLDs are available on install.

You can use the following update site sto install this release.

Groovy-Eclipse update site for Eclipse 3.7 and 3.6 For Eclipse 3.7: http://dist.springsource.org/release/GRECLIPSE/e3.7/ For Eclipse 3.6: http://dist.springsource.org/release/GRECLIPSE/e3.6/

And a zipped version of the update site is available at:

Zipped Groovy-Eclipse update site for Eclipse 3.7 and 3.6 For Eclipse 3.7: http://dist.springsource.org/release/GRECLIPSE/e3.6/XXXXXXXXXX For Eclipse 3.6: http://dist.springsource.org/release/GRECLIPSE/e3.7/XXXXXXXXXX You can install from the zip by pointing your Eclipse update manager to the downloaded zip file and following the installation instructions.

Outline

Eclipse 3.7 support

With the 2.5.1 release, Eclipse 3.7 has become the main development branch. Although we have been releasing 3.7-based versions of Groovy-Eclipse for a while, it has not been our primary release until now. We will continue to support the Eclipse 3.6-based version of Groovy-Eclipse, but it will no longer be the main branch of our development.

groovy-eclipse-compiler for Maven

We have released the groovy-eclipse-compiler for Maven that let's you use the Groovy-Eclipse compiler in your maven projects. This provides a more robust way of compiling mixed Groovy-Java projects with Maven than previous approaches have allowed. See all the documentation at the Groovy-Eclipse compiler plugin for Maven page.

DSL Descriptor enhancements

Most of the DSLD enhancements are centered around sharing DSLD files among multiple projects in the workspace. For those of you unfamiliar with DSLDs, please read the Better DSL Support in Groovy-Eclipse blog post.

Groovy DSL Support classpath container

All Groovy projects will have the Groovy DSL Support classpath container added automatically. No production code is in the classpath container. It is only meant to contain DSLD files. Inside, there are two class folders: global_dsld_support and plugin_dsld_support, described below.

Global DSLDs

The global_dsld_support folder points to ${user.home}/.groovy/greclipse/global_dsld_support. It is meant to contain DSLDs that should be shared amongst all projects in the workspace. You can place any DSLD files here and it will be picked up by Groovy-Eclipse. Actually, it's not that easy...because of Eclipse Bug 346928, you must go to Preferences -> Groovy -> DSLD and click Recompile before the new scripts will be found:

Plugin DSLDs

The plugin_dsld_support folder points to ${eclipse.home}/plugins/org.codehaus.groovy${active.groovy.version}/plugin_dsld_support. This folder contains the DSLD files that are shipped with this installation of Groovy-Eclipse. Since these files will be changed and updated on each upgrade, it is not recommended that users edit these files.

Controlling the Classpath container

It is possible to manually add and remove the Groovy DSL Support classpath container by clicking on a groovy project and selecting add/remove Groovy DSL Support:

Alternatively, if you do not want the classpath container added automatically to any project, you can disable this in the Eclipse preferences -> Groovy -> DSLD:

Multiple DSLDs of same name

In order to support an eco-system of DSLDs and be able to gracefully handle the conflicts that could occur when multiple versions of a single DSLD exist in a project, Groovy-Eclipse now uses the following heuristics when looking for DSLDs:

1. All DSLDs with the same name are considered the same, regardless of which folder or jar they are located in.
2. DSLDs that exist in the project (i.e., not in a jar file and not coming from a binary class folder) take precedence.
3. After that, the classpath ordering takes precedence. In other words, a DSLD located in a jar at the beginning of the classpath will take precedence over a DSLD located in a jar at the end of the classpath.
4. If multiple versions of a single DSLD file is located in the project or in a single classpath entry, then an arbitrary one is chosen. The others are ignored.

Disabling DSLD support

It is possible to completely disable DSLD support. You can do this from the preferences -> Groovy -> DSLD page:

What to expect for the future of DSLDs

FIXADE: Work on this!!!

1. Syntax changes to bring in line with other IDEs (intellij)
2. As much as possible, we will continue to support old syntax, but it may be deprecated
3. Where not possible to support old syntax, we will provide a migration path

Built-in AST transforms recognized in the editor

Groovy-Eclipse now ships with several built-in DSLD files that handle some built-in AST transforms like @Delegate, @Mixin, and @Singleton. Additionally, support exists for Swing Builder. The Groovy DSL Support classpath container must be added to your project in order for this support to be available. For example. here is the singleton transform in use:

And here is swing builder in use:

All hovers over swing builder components have links to full documentation.

Launch configurations

The Groovy Script launcher is now more robust. Upgrading Groovy-Eclipse versions will not break existing launch configurations. Furthermore, these launch configurations can be saved as files in a project and committed into a VCS to be shared between developers.

Compatibility

Groovy-Eclipse 2.5.1 includes Groovy 1.7.10 by default. Groovy 1.8.0 can be optionally installed. Groovy-Eclipse is installable on STS 2.7.0, Eclipse 3.7.0, 3.6.0, 3.6.1, or 3.6.2. There are different update sites for Groovy-Eclipse targeting Eclipse 3.6 and 3.7. See above for the update sites.

Bug fixes

There have been 30 bug fixes in this release. You can see all of them in the Codehaus issue tracker.

What's next?

We appreciate all community support and feedback. If you wish to join the discussion about Groovy-Eclipse then please sign up for the mailing list. For any issues you have (or enhancements you would like to see), please raise them in our issue tracker. If there is an existing bug fix or enhancement that you require are not seeing any movement on, please make some noise on it (and get your friends to do the same). We respond to community feedback, and we can make the most improvements to Groovy-Eclipse when we hear directly from the community. So, please speak up!