The complete set of release deliverables for the e4 project will include:
- Source code release for all e4 Project deliverables, available as versions tagged "R1_0" 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.
- A p2 repository of binary release deliverables, maintained in a public, stable location on the http://eclipse.org Web site.
Compatibility of e4 July 2010 with previous Eclipse project releases
e4 July 2010 will not be compatible with previous releases of e4, such as the e4 0.9 release. This includes binary compatibility, contract compatibility, workbench model compatibility, and workspace compatibility.
e4 July 2010 includes a set of bundles that are binary and API contract compatible with Eclipse Platform UI API from the Eclipse Helios (3.6) release. This set of bundles is known as the compatibility layer, and is intended to be used to create a full Eclipse SDK release on e4 that is fully compatible with previous Eclipse project releases. Thus while e4 July 2010 itself is not compatible with previous Eclipse project releases, it provides the necessary infrastructure to allow a fully compatible e4-based release of the Eclipse SDK to be created.
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 e4 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.
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 July 2010 release of the e4 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 Helios 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. The reference platforms listed below show the versions of these technologies that we are developing and testing against.
e4 July 2010 is tested and validated on the following reference platforms (this list is updated over the course of the release cycle):
table.platforms { border-width: 1px; border-spacing: 0px; border-style: solid; border-collapse: separate; } table.platforms th { border-width: 1px; padding: 3px; border-style: inset; border-color: black; background-color: #B9A9FF; } table.platforms td { border-width: 1px 1px 1px 1px; padding: 3px 3px 3px 3px; border-style: inset inset inset inset; border-color: gray gray gray gray; } table.platforms tr.c0 td { background-color: #FDFDFD; } table.platforms tr.c1 td { background-color: #F4EEFF; } Operating SystemVersionHardwareJREWindowing SystemWindows7x86 32-bitSun Java 5 Update 22
IBM Java 5 SR11 Win32XPRed Hat Enterprise Linux5.0x86 32-bit Sun Java 5 Update 22
IBM Java 5 SR11 GTKApple Mac OS X10.5UniversalApple Java 10.5 Update 2Cocoa
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.
Easier to Develop
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 use and extend. This theme encompasses work to make it easier to develop software components for the Eclipse platform.
Easier to Assemble
The Eclipse platform provides an excellent basis for producing extensible integrated development environments (IDEs). However, it can be difficult to assemble and customize Eclipse components into different kinds of applications or for different runtime environments. This theme encompasses work to make it easier to rearrange, customize, and otherwise mash up Eclipse components into very different kinds of applications.