So I know I’m going to get a hard time from the die hard eclipse lovers out there. Don’t get me wrong, eclipse (or more precisely for me cfeclipse) is free to use and at that cost you can’t get any cheaper which is fantastic for all ColdFusion developers 
Also I REALLY admire Rob Rohan, Mark Drew and all the other contributors this and every other open source product. It’s people like these who truly give something of value to the community at large. Well done.
Some of the things I love about eclipse/cfeclipse are:
- Snippets and snippet variables
- Free and open source
- Plugins for CSS, Javascript, SVN etc
- Code completion
- Syntax highlighting
So with all these lovely features (and more) why does it sometimes make my life difficult? Well it’s the little things!
When I installed eclipse 3.2 (which I’ve done three times now on three different machines) I experienced memory leaks causing my code to magically duplicate itself in the editor pane. The only solution was to shut down that file and re-open it.
Why can’t I open a file which doesn’t exist in a ‘project’? Oh I understand the merits of keeping everything in a project, but tell me that this doesn’t annoy you when you want to look at a random file. Please don’t say “use notepad”.
In 3.2 after I add a comment (using the keyboard shortcut ctrl + shft + M) my cursor appears to the left of the comment block…not in the middle where I can start to write my comment.
The global replace (for me) is clunky. First you’ve got to know how to do it. Hit ctrl + h (or use the search menu option), then enter your text that you want to replace, hit search…oh but don’t forget to make sure that the ‘working set’ you are in is selected as by default it’s the last working set you searched in. After searching you’ll get another window to enter your replacement text, but you can’t choose to replace in “All open documents”.
Don’t get me started on auto-completing single and double quotes. It works well some of the time, but can trip you up if you’re not careful.
Why can’t I see the file path of the file I’m working on in the header? I know I know…you can hover over the tab and get a tooltip, but it’s just not the same.
Does your eclipse/cfeclipse suddenly ‘hang’ every now and then? Don’t worry, give it about 10 seconds and it’ll wake up again.
I’ve had discussions with some other developers who don’t seem to be having the same issues as me. But I’ve used 3 different versions of eclipse/cfeclipse on 3 different machines. Same problems.
The general concensus is that it’s probably plugins which are causing me pain. But the plugins are one of the main reasons I use cfeclipse!. Plugins for SVN and Aptana etc are very handy. Where am I if I suddenly can’t use plugins? Well back using Homesite I think. I used Homesite before eclipse, and apart from the plugins (and of course the AUD$139 cost) why would I want to use eclipse?
I’m sure this is close to heart for many of you out there as most developers I know are proud to use eclipse/cfeclipse as am I. But I’m willing to pay for a smooth ride. Please please please feel free to enlighten me if you think I’m way off track here. At the end of the day I just want an editor which gives me no problems and has the main features a developer (not designer, note I didn’t mention the design view of Dreamweaver) needs.
11 Comments
Why can’t I open a file which doesn’t exist in a ‘project’?
Window -> Show view -> file explorer view
Alot of the “difficulties” i have had with eclipse is not understanding how to use its functionality rather than eclipse itself
I experienced memory leaks causing my code to magically duplicate itself in the editor pane.
Right click on the editor pane and Refresh Syntax Highlighting.
In regards to any issues/bugs get on the Mailing list and start asking questions. You’ll probably find that all of these are addressed on their. Its an active list with a lot of developers chipping in with help.
Also which version of CFE are you running? Stable or Bleeding Edge?
Last but not least CFE is an open project if you think you can fix something why not check out the code and send in a patch.
Hi Brendan,
Yeah I know the file explorer, I usually use it from the left sidebar. What I’d like is to be able to drag a file into the editor pane and have it open in a new tab.
I’m really trying not to gripe about things just because the functionality isn’t what I’m used to.
I guess *most* editors have a lot of the same features and I suppose that’s what I’m looking for.
I’m totally up for learning the ‘eclipse’ way of doing things…I just need a few common features and some more stability.
I think I’m going to try the standalone version of Aptana. A couple of people have suggested trying that.
Hi Andy,
Thanks for those tips, I must admit I haven’t tried the mailing list. I will do!
I’ve been using the stable release of cfeclipse, particularly because I have been experiencing problems.
Thanks again
@andy,
Make sure that you downloaded the new beta at:
http://www.cfeclipse.org/beta/
The old beta had a lot of problems, the new fixes these. The new one is packaged as org.cfeclipse.
If you haven’t downloaded Aptana yet, do so, and use their file explorer instead of cfcelipse’s. In my opinion is more feature rich and more stable. So do: Window -> Show View -> Other -> Aptana -> File.
I’ve noticed that for some reason that if you use cfscript more in you coding, the memory leak doesn’t happen. I guess this is because they don’t have a parser to it yet. But in any case, use cfscript where you can and the memory leak doesn’t happend, I know that sounds dumb, but it does work.
I’ve been using Eclipse on OS X, Linux, and Windows for quite some time now and haven’t ever seen the memory leak issues you’re describing, so I *strongly* suspect it’s Aptana, mainly because that’s a plugin I’ve never used but I do have tons of other plugins installed that all run without a hitch.
As for the file explorer view, is it really more convenient or quicker to drag/drop a file than it is to double-click it to open it? I mean, you have to click on the file once to select it for dragging anyway …
In the end you have to use what works best for you of course, but personally I think once you get into the swing of Eclipse you’ll find yourself griping about what isn’t there in other editors you used to use.
Have you tried using Aptana as a stand-alone client, and adding the CFEclipse plug-in to it (instead of using Eclipse w/CFEclipse+Aptana Plugins)?
For me this seems to work well. You can even associate *.cfm/*cfc file to Aptana in windows so that if you have double click a ColdFusion file form your desktop or windows explorer it will open it in Aptana, much the same way it would have opened in Homesite.
Personally I have both Eclipse (w/CFEclipse+Aptana) and Aptana (w/CFEclipse) set up. I use Eclipse for my normal day-to-day work flow where I use my projects to organize my work. Then I use Aptana client for anytime I have a single file I need to just open-and-edit (what I used to use Homesite for). Like if someone emailed me a file or I need to edit code from a network drive.
This way I can still leverage CFEclipse regardless of the type of work I am currently doing.
You should try the BER release. You can get it from http://www.cfeclipse.org/beta/. Its what I’ve been working from for a couple of months now.
If you are worries about the BER breaking eclipse you can always copy your current eclipes folder and call the copy something like eclipse.old and then update the original with the BER version. If it doesnt work for you then reverting back is simple.
I’ve been happy with Dreamweaver but thought I should at least have a look at Eclipse. But then I saw the download was 120Mb and thought, no, not even OpenOffice is that big! It sounds rather bloaty. Is all 120mb necessary?
In Eclipse 3.2, the Eclipse team added the File -> Open File… command which takes care of opening any file on your system.
Mike.
@Gary, does size matter (well I suppose it depends on who you ask)
) ? But surely you’d rather download a 120mb extensible program than a 60mb program that does just one job?
Either way look into Calilisto from the Eclipse project. From the site
The initial download you can get here and is only 34mb!