how to do a clean install of eclipse

The following works for Eclipse Juno.

download the source

http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/

click Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers > Linux 64-bitwe install eclipse manually to get the latest and best version. sometimes the ubuntu package manager isn't updated with the latest version.

unzip the file

install eclipse

configure eclipse.ini for svn

open a terminal and install the following (needed for the JavaHL plugin):

sudo apt-get install libsvn-java

find the path where the JavaHL library is installed (in your terminal window):

sudo find / -name libsvnjavahl-1.so

open eclipse.ini and set the java.library.path with the value from the above "find" command, e.g.:

-vmargs

-Djava.library.path=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/jni

-Dosgi.requiredJavaVersion=1.5

-Dhelp.lucene.tokenizer=standard

-XX:MaxPermSize=256m

-Xms40m

-Xmx512m

reference:

http://subclipse.tigris.org/wiki/JavaHL

set file encoding to UTF-8

window > preferences > general > content types > expand "Text" and everything under it.

In Eclipse Juno, the following file types need to be changed from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8(Find the value, select it, then at the bottom, change Default Encoding, then click Update)

Java Properties

JSP

JSP > JSP Fragment

JSP > JSP Tag Definition

JSP > JSP Tag Definition > XML JSP Tag Definition

show line numbers

Windows > Preferences > General > Editors > Text Editors > checkmark the “Show line numbers” option

install plugins

configure your package view

the default view is Package Explorer, but it shows you a lot of unecessary things like jars, etc. set your view to Navigator:

window > show view > navigator

click the "Link with editor" icon (2 vertical arrows pointing in opposite directions). this will highlight your file in the Navigator so you immediately see where it is.

configure eclipse for running jboss in debug mode

configure Eclipse's Console

right click anywhere in the Console tab > Preferences > remove the checkmark by Limit console output

validation
disable unnecessary validators (sometimes they take a lot of time)
preferences > validation
click disable all
then enable the following:
classpath dependency validator


don't reuse editors
it's annoying when you want to open a file in search (or compare in team synchronizing view) and you lose the previous file you were looking at because eclipse, by default, will reuse editor windows. to fix this:
Windows > Preferences > General > Search
uncheck Reuse editors to show matches