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| <title>Converting projects into PDE projects</title> | |
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| <h1>Converting existing Java projects into PDE projects</h1> | |
| <p>A PDE project is a project that "knows" that it hosts a plug-in | |
| and is eligible for plug-in-specific operations. Although the very presence of a | |
| manifest file is enough to use many PDE features, there is a slant towards Java | |
| plug-in projects because most of the plug-ins are written in Java. One of the | |
| most useful feature set in PDE revolves around computing and managing Java class | |
| path for plug-ins and fragments under development.</p> | |
| <p>PDE is fully capable of working plug-ins in the workspace represented as | |
| ordinary Java projects. However, it is cannot offer incremental file checking, | |
| capability-based filtering and other similar features if a Java project does not | |
| have a full PDE capability.</p> | |
| <p>It is | |
| possible to convert a regular Java project into a PDE project at any point. For | |
| example, you may have some Java classes that you want to package into a library | |
| and share with others as a plug-in. Alternatively, you may want to get full | |
| support for manifest syntax checking and reporting that only PDE projects have.</p> | |
| <p>To convert Java into PDE projects, select <b>File>New>Other...</b> and | |
| choose "Plug-in Development" category in the wizard. After | |
| selecting "Convert Java to Plug-in Projects" wizard and pressing | |
| <b>Next</b>, the following wizard will appear:</p> | |
| <p align="center"> | |
| <img border="0" src="images/convert-java.gif" alt=""Convert Java Projects" wizard" width="500" height="500"></p> | |
| <p>The wizard will list all Java projects that do not have PDE capability. | |
| Candidate projects do not need to have manifest files. If they are missing, PDE | |
| will create generic ones you can use as a starting point. Files that already | |
| exist will be left intact. As an option, you can re-compute the build path in | |
| the process. If your project has a classpath you want preserved, deselect this | |
| checkbox.</p> | |
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