I'm trying to set up Eclipse 3.2.2 on my laptop. The first problem I
hit is that the locations available for saving extensions are all in
root territory, /usr/share and /usr/lib. So of course as a non-root
user I can't write to them. Is there a location for local storage of
extensions? No, that would be too easy.
OK, I can add to the list of extension locations. I click on that, and
get a list of directories in my home directory. No .directories show,
e.g. .eclipse, etc. Great.
I get around this by typing in ".eclipse". Hitting return produces an
error message, but at least now I can return to the file picker and
I'm in the .eclipse directory. Are we having fun yet?
I found out later by accident that if you right click in the picker
window, you can turn on "show hidden files". Another intuitive and
obvious GUI feature.
There is a description of what Eclipse is looking for in the file
picker. OK, if the people who wrote the file picker know what they
need, why can't the user pick a convenient spot and have Eclipse build
the directory structure? Did someone say, "User friendly"?
So I built the whole tree by hand, selected it, and Eclipse insisted
on restarting. Someone please tell the developers that this is not
Windows.
I then started looking for extensions. Again. For each repository,
Eclipse wants to know, again, my preferred mirror. Is there any reason
Eclipse can't salt that information away in a properties file?
OK, it's capable of figuring out and selecting dependencies. I suppose
I should be thankful for that.
I then accept the licenses, having, as we all do, read every single
one. I then hit "next" ("finish" is there but grayed out). Nothing
happens. Nada, zip. I can hit the "next" button all I want, and
nothing happens.
On the theory that the cute little question mark hieroglyph in the
lower left hand corner of the dialog box might give me some help, I
click on that. Again, nothing.
The program isn't locked up, it's just on strike or something. Maybe
after all that I should be glad the "Cancel" button worked.
Is everything in Eclipse this brain-damaged user hostile? Is this a
test designed to limit Eclipse users to uber-geeks?
--
Charles Curley /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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