The complete set of release deliverables for the e4 project have not yet been determined. However, deliverables will include:
- Source code release for all e4 Project deliverables, available as versions tagged "R0_9" in the e4 Project CVS repository.
- e4 master zip (downloadable). Contains all source code, e4 bundles in binary form, and patches for applying portions of e4 onto an existing instance of the Eclipse Platform.
Compatibility of e4 0.9 with previous Eclipse project releases
Portions of e4 will be compatible with Eclipse 3.5 (and all earlier 3.x versions). However, compatibility is not a primary focus for this initial release of e4, and there is no firm promise of compatibility between e4 and earlier Eclipse releases of any kind. Compatibility with Eclipse 3.x is anticipated to be a major focus of the subsequent e4 release.
Workspace Compatibility: e4 0.9 will be upwards workspace-compatible with ealier 3.x versions of the Eclipse SDK unless noted. This means that workspaces and projects created with Eclipse SDK 3.4 .. 3.0 can be successfully opened by e4 0.9 and upgraded to an e4 workspace. This includes both hidden metadata, which is localized to a particular workspace, as well as metadata files found within a workspace project (e.g., the .project file), which may propagate between workspaces via file copying or team repositories. Individual plug-ins developed for e4 0.9 should provide similar upwards compatibility for their hidden and visible workspace metadata created by earlier versions; 0.9 plug-in developers are responsible for ensuring that their plug-ins recognize metadata from earlier versions and process it appropriately. User interface session state may be discarded when a workspace is upgraded. Downward workspace compatibility is not supported. A workspace created (or opened) by a product based on e4 0.9 will be unusable with a product based an earlier version of Eclipse. Visible metadata files created (or overwritten) by e4 0.9 will generally be unusable with earlier versions of Eclipse.
Non-compliant usage of API's: All non-API methods and classes, and certainly everything in a package with "internal" in its name, are considered implementation details which may vary between operating environment and are subject to change without notice. Client plug-ins that directly depend on anything other than what is specified in the Eclipse SDK API are inherently unsupportable and receive no guarantees about compatibility within a single release much less with earlier releases. Refer to How to Use the Eclipse API for information about how to write compliant plug-ins.
The e4 platform is designed as the basis for internationalized products. The user interface elements provided by the e4 components, including dialogs and error messages, are externalized. The English strings are provided as the default resource bundles.
Latin-1 and DBCS locales are supported by e4 on all reference platforms; BIDI locales are supported by e4 everywhere but on Motif.
e4 supports GB 18030 (level 1), the Chinese code page standard, on Windows XP and 2000, Linux/GTK and the Macintosh.
German and Japanese locales are tested.
In order to remain current, each e4 Project release targets reasonably current operating environments.
Most of the e4 Project is "pure" Java code and has no direct dependence on the underlying operating system. The chief dependence is therefore on the Java Platform itself. Portions are targeted to specific classes of operating environments, requiring their source code to only reference facilities available in particular class libraries (e.g. J2ME Foundation 1.0, J2SE 1.3 and 1.4, etc.). In general, the 0.9 release of the Eclipse Project is developed on Java SE 5.
e4 has dependencies on components from other Eclipse projects, notably the Platform project, and the EMF project. While specific version dependencies may specify a wider range, e4 is generally built and tested against the versions contained in the Galileo release train.
There are many different implementations of the Java Platform running atop a variety of operating systems. We focus our testing on a handful of popular combinations of operating system and Java Platform; these are our reference platforms. Eclipse undoubtedly runs fine in many operating environments beyond the reference platforms we test. However, since we do not systematically test them we cannot vouch for them. Problems encountered when running Eclipse on a non-reference platform that cannot be recreated on any reference platform will be given lower priority than problems with running Eclipse on a reference platform.
e4 also has dependencies on browser technologies such as Javascript and Flash. The reference platforms listed below show the versions of these technologies that we are developing and testing against.
e4 0.9 is tested and validated on the following reference platforms (this list is updated over the course of the release cycle):
Reference PlatformsMicrosoft Windows Vista, x86-32, Win32 running (any of):
- Sun Java Standard Edition 5 Update 14 for Microsoft Windows
- IBM 32-bit SDK for Windows, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0, SR6b
Microsoft Windows XP, x86-32, Win32 running (any of):
- Sun Java Standard Edition 5 Update 14 for Microsoft Windows
- IBM 32-bit SDK for Windows, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0, SR6b
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0, x86-32, GTK running (any of):
- Sun Java Standard Edition 5 Update 14 for Linux x86
- IBM 32-bit SDK for Linux on Intel architecture, Java 2 Technology Edition 5.0, SR6b
Apple Mac OS X 10.5, Universal, Cocoa running:
- Apple Java for Mac OS X 10.5, Update 1
As stated above, we expect that e4 works fine on other current Java VM and OS versions but we cannot flag these as reference platforms without significant community support for testing them.
Design for Extensibility
Over the years the Eclipse platform has accumulated a large body of API, resulting in a platform that is very powerful, but also very difficult for non-experts to extend. This theme encompasses work to make the Eclipse platform much easier to build applications and extensions upon.
Rich Internet Applications
Eclipse is well-established as the cross-platform IDE of choice, but it has become much more than that. The extensive and diverse range of applications that are being built on the Eclipse code base, and the constantly changing capabilities of the underlying systems on which it runs, are driving us to push the limits of our technology in almost every dimension. In particular, there is increasing demand for an equivalent of the Eclipse platform in the Rich Internet Application (RIA) space. Having a single platform that can be used to build and run applications on a wide variety of web and desktop technologies, would enable application writers to exploit a wide range of deployment options from a common code base.
Ease of Use
The Eclipse IDE platform provides sufficient capabilities for a wide range of developers, but has limitations that make it difficult to use as an IDE for certain kinds of development. This theme encompasses work to make the Eclipse IDE easier to use for embedded, C/C++, parallel, and server-side developer environments.