The Eclipse Marketplace is a pretty cool bit of software. It provides a great place for organizations and individuals to make their software available to the community. Even cooler, however, is the Eclipse Marketplace Client which lets you browse the Eclipse Marketplace and directly install new features from within the comfort of your Eclipse IDE.
The Eclipse Marketplace Client is included in all of the products hosted on the Eclipse Downloads page and configurations realized by the installer. Open the Marketplace client via the Help > Eclipse Marketplace… menu.
I’ll admit, however, that I rarely use the Marketplace Client directly. Instead, I make use of the drag and drop feature.
Eclipse Marketplace entries have a handy “Install” button:
If you drag this button from your web browser and drop it on your Eclipse IDE, it will start the installation process. You’ll have to review the changes that it proposes and likely agree to licensing terms, but after that, it all just happens. You don’t to fuss with software source (p2) sites: it just works.
The best part is that you can include those handy install links on your own web pages. Every Marketplace entry has an “External Install Button” tab that gives you the HTML to insert onto your page.
Do you miss having CVS integration in your IDE? You can install it right now:
Do you need a German language pack for your Eclipse IDE? Drag and drop this und Eclipse sprechen Ihre Sprache:
Or maybe install the Docker integration:
For users, it couldn’t be easier to extend your Eclipse IDE in all sorts of ways.
For Eclipse Project teams, the Eclipse Marketplace is a great way to help people get and use your software. When you create a marketplace entry that pulls software from the Eclipse downloads server, that entry is automatically added into the Eclipse Project Market and is given the Eclipse Project badge.
When you’re blogging about the cool new features in your latest release, why not include a handy install button?
