4.5.0

Description

This release brings improved GTK+ 3 support, adds support for the Power 8 Linux LE platform, and improves the performance and stability of the Platform user interface. For more details see the official Mars Plan.

API Certification

The project leadership certifies that the APIs in this release are "Eclipse Quality".

Architectural Issues

Eclipse Platform no longer runs on JREs below 7
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. If GTK+ 3 is not available we fall back to GTK+ 2
PDE Build is in maintenance mode and is no longer used to build the Eclipse platform itself
1 removed bundle
- org.eclipse.equinox.p2.ql
4 new bundles
- org.eclipse.e4.core.di.annotations
- org.eclipse.e4.emf.xpath
- org.eclipse.e4.ui.dialogs
- org.eclipse.ui.monitoring
2 new bundles consumed from Orbit
- org.apache.commons.jxpath
- org.tukaani.xz

Security Issues

The Eclipse top-level project continues to fix and resolve any security related issues found during development and penetration testing.

Non-Code Aspects

The build system is under continuous improvement
- http://wiki.eclipse.org/Platform-releng/Platform_Build
Luna maintenance builds after 4.4.2 via Long Term Support (LTS) forge
Conscious effort to engage contributors and accept contributions
- Attended code camps and hack days
- Held dedicated patch days where contributions were reviewed
- Initiated and heavily participated in Great Fixes for Mars
- See plan item bug 441565 for other activities to get more contributions
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
Localization
- Tested for Localization and participating in Babel Project
Accessibility
- Significant focus on US Gov. Section 508 accessibility compliance
- Open accessibility bugs: 9 major, 1 critical (targeted for 4.5.1), 0 blocker
The 4.5 release contains updated User and ISV documentation
Articles, examples, and tutorials
- Tutorials for Eclipse 4 are listed under http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse4/Tutorials
- Numerous Webinars and Podcasts

Usability Details

Eclipse SDK is a superior IDE for Java tooling and plug-in development
Many usability enhancements made in 4.5 to continue this tradition (see New and Noteworthy for details)
Perspective Customization works again in 4.5
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 GTK+ 2 versions older than 2.18 got dropped
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 deprecated API removals document
A process is in place for removing invalid/outdated API – http://wiki.eclipse.org/Eclipse/API_Central/API_Removal_Process

Standards

Annotation Processing APIs
- com.sun.mirror 1.5
- javax.annotation.processing 1.6
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 4.12
Java SE
- Compiler can generate Java 1.1 through Java 1.8 code
- Eclipse Platform can run on Java SE 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
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+