Installing the Eclipse RCP Delta pack in 7 steps

by Ugo

I’ve decided to write this little step-by-step illustrated guide to help out some fellows who were always having trouble on exporting Eclipse products for multiple platforms. This is a little different from the steps you find here and here.

What is the Delta Pack?

It’s a zipped Eclipse package with all the needed plugins to export your RCP product to many platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac, and so on) without having to do that on a platform’s native Eclipse installation. The archive contains all the platform specific fragments from the Eclipse SDK.

Situation

You have either

  • a .product of an already existing project (I will use Sketch product for Shapes Applicationas the example here)
  • you have your .product with your native installation dependencies and want to export to multiple platforms
First, check your version

First of all, check your Eclipse version, the delta pack you will download must have the exact same version, which means (yes) you will need to download another delta pack in case you update your Eclipse. But fortunately the steps are really easy to follow.

In my case, the version is Galileo 3.5.2 and the build is M20100211-1343, so look for that delta pack. Googling “delta pack <build name>” should give you the link, the file is usually like eclipse-M20100211–1343–delta–pack.zip

Unpack it into any folder. I usually place inside my own eclipse directory, inside a folder called delta.

 

Adding the delta pack to your Running Platform

1) Go to Window -> Preferences -> Plug-in Development -> Target Platform andEdit your current Running Platform.

2) Click Add..

3) Select Installation

4) Browse for the folder where you extracted the delta pack (mine is inside my eclipse folder, inside a folder called delta.

5) It will show all the packages for all platforms. See the swt for win32 64 bits, linux and everything. Click Finish and it will reload your platform (it might take a while).

6) If you open up your .product definition, and click Add Required Plugins, you shall see all the plugins.

7) If you go at the Overview tab of your product, click Export Product export wizard, and there it is, Export to multiple platforms.

Now you are able to generate your RCP product for any platform Eclipse is built for. Enjoy!

http://git.eclipse.org/c/sketch/org.eclipse.sketch.core.git/