Eclipse Project 4.4.0
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Description:
This release brings full GTK+ 3 (where supported and successfully tested) and Java 8 support to Eclipse. It also improves performance and stability of the Platform user interface. For more details see the official Luna Plan.
API Certification:
The project leadership certifies that the APIs in this release are "Eclipse Quality".
Architectural Issues:
- More APIs have been released for Eclipse Platform 4
- Reference JREs for development and testing updated to most recent releases but no major changes
- Linux builds come with GTK+ 3 support enabled by default on GTK+ 3 versions prior to 3.10, versions newer than that will fall back to GTK+ 2.x by default for maximum stability
- 0 removed bundles
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5 new bundles
- org.eclipse.core.filesystem.java7
- org.eclipse.jdt.annotation_2.0.0 (in addition to org.eclipse.jdt.annotation_1.1.0)
- org.eclipse.osgi.compatibility.state
- org.eclipse.pde.api.tools.annotations
- org.eclipse.ui.themes
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3 new bundles consumed from Orbit
- org.apache.batik.css
- org.objectweb.asm.tree
- org.w3c.dom.events
Security Issues:
The Eclipse top-level continues to fix and resolve any security related issues found during development and penetration testing.
Non-Code Aspects:
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The build system is under continuous improvement
- http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform-releng/Platform_Build
- Running Juno maintenance builds after 4.2.2 in Long Term Support (LTS) forge
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Conscious effort to engage contributors and accept contributions
- Attended code camps and hack days
- Held dedicated patch days where contributions were reviewed
- See plan item bug 422762 for other activities to get more contributions
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Internationalization
- Latin1 and Latin2 locales are supported in all operating environments
- DBCS locales are supported on all platforms
- BIDI locales supported on all platforms
- GB18030-1 Chinese code page standard is supported on Windows, Linux GTK+ and Mac.
- Added BIDI support for combo box and a new Globalization preference page
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Localization
- Tested for Localization and participating in Babel Project
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Accessibility
- Significant focus on US Gov. Section 508 accessibility compliance
- Open accessibility bugs: 8 major, 0 critical, 0 blocker
- The 4.4 release contains updated User and ISV documentation
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Articles, examples, and tutorials
- New and updated tutorials for Eclipse 4: http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse4/Tutorials
- Numerous Webinars and Podcasts
- Some of the new/updated articles and tutorials were provided by the Eclipse community
Usability Details:
- Eclipse SDK is a superior IDE for Java tooling and plug-in development
- Many usability enhancements made in 4.4 to continue this tradition (see New and Noteworthy for details)
- Strings are externalized to support translation into other languages
- Extensive use of mnemonics and shortcut keys in the user interface enhances usability
- Full Bidirectional support (mirroring) on Windows and Linux GTK+, bidirectional text on Mac OS X
- Accessibility support for Windows, Linux GTK+ and Mac OS X
- Eclipse User Interface Guidelines followed
End of Life:
- Support for non-OSGi bundles from Eclipse 2.0 has been removed in the 4.4 release as part of Equinox framework refactoring. A compatibility bundle is available.
- We plan to remove the delta pack for Mars. It is additional overhead/work and one can achieve the same via p2 repository. We will only do this after providing detailed instructions on how to it via p2 before removing the delta pack.
- When evolving API the Eclipse Platform will, whenever possible, deprecate API methods and continue to keep them operational
- Exceptions to this rule are in the 4.4 migration guide
- A process is in place for removing invalid/outdated API – http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse/API_Central/API_Removal_Process
Standards:
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Annotation Processing APIs
- com.sun.mirror 1.5
- javax.annotation.processing 1.6
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Java compiler API
- javax.tools 1.6
- User Assistance consumes (parses) a small subset of RSS 1.0 to get news from eclipse.org
- JUnit 4.11
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Java SE
- Tools are built against Java SE 6
- Compiler can generate Java 1.1 through Java 1.8 code
- Eclipse Platform can run on Java SE 6, 7 or 8
- SWT: Win32, GDI, GDI+, OLE, IE, Cocoa, Core Graphics, Quick Draw, Safari, ATSUI, X Windows, X/t, GTK+, GDK, Pango, Cairo, ATK, Mozilla, Uniscribe,OpenGL
Communities:
- The Eclipse team is active in Bugzilla, forums and mailing lists
- Many Eclipse blogs on http://planeteclipse.org
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Some teams are using IRC to communicate
- irc://irc.freenode.net#eclipse-dev
- irc://irc.freenode.net/#eclipse-e4
- also see: http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/IRC
- Major Eclipse presence on http://stackoverflow.com
- The Eclipse team participates in code camps, conference presentations, and tutorials, including EclipseCon, EclipseCon Europe, Eclipse Demo Camps, JavaOne, JavaWorld,JAOO, JAX, JAX Asia, JSConf
- The Eclipse team interacts with other open source projects, standards bodies, and other projects on eclipse.org, including OSGi, Apache Ant, JCP, WTP, GCJ, GTK+
Subprojects included with this release:
This release is part of Luna.