Announcing Red Hat Developer Studio 11.0.0.GA and JBoss Tools 4.5.0.Final for Eclipse Oxygen

java -jar jboss-devstudio-<installername>.jar

http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/oxygen/stable/updates/

The Filters dialog is now accessible from the toolbar of the Problems, Bookmarks, and Tasks views.

Previously, it was only accessible via view menu > Configure Contents…

Now also as a toolbar button:

Editor selection dialog: Use for all

The Editor Selection dialog now offers a one-click option for choosing the editor that should open all files with the same extension in the future.

Example when selecting "file.xyz" and choosing Open with > Other…

More high-resolution images

More images in the old GIF format were replaced by images in the PNG format. In addition, high-resolution images were added. As PNG can handle transparency better than GIF, the ugly white borders around shapes visible in the dark theme are now gone for these icons.

To see their full beauty, a high-DPI monitor (e.g. a Retina Mac) is needed. The lower part of the screenshot shows the wizard banner image of the Import dialog in high-resolution.

The right part of the screenshot shows all the icons in high-resolution.

'Filters and Customization… ' in Project Explorer

The Customize View…  command in the Project Explorer's view menu has been renamed to Filters and Customization…

Copy Details submenu for Problems and Tasks views

You can copy the description or the resource qualified name of an error, warning, or task into the clipboard using commands in the Copy Details context menu.

Show Annotation renamed to Show Revision Information

For files checked out from CVS, the Show Annotation command in the text editor’s vertical ruler and in the Team menu has been renamed to Show Revision Information. This change has been synchronized with the Eclipse Git team provider, so future versions of EGit will use the same name.

"Other Projects" working set in Project Explorer

If you’re using the Project Explorer and working sets as top-level elements, the Top Level Elements view menu now provides a way to show the Other Projects group for projects that are not in one of the currently active working sets.

"Recently used filters" feature in Project Explorer

The Project Explorer view now has a Recent Filters menu that shows the most recently used filters.

Reduced window margins

The window margins have been reduced to provide more space in the IDE.

Old style:

New style (see the reduced space below the Quick Access box).

External browsers on Linux

On Linux, the list of recognized external browsers has been updated to include:

• Firefox (/usr/bin/firefox)
• Chrome (/usr/bin/google-chrome)
• Chromium (/usr/bin/chromium-browser)
• Epiphany/Gnome Web (/usr/bin/epiphany)
• Konqueror (/usr/bin/konqueror)

GTK theme system property

SWT now stores the GTK theme used at launch time in a system property,org.eclipse.swt.internal.gtk.theme This property can help with troubleshooting issues that are specific to certain themes. It can be viewed in About > Installation Details > Configuration.

Ctrl+E command improvements

You can use the Quick Switch Editor (Ctrl+E) command to list and filter all the open editors. This works now also if you have selected a view in the editor area. You can filter the list using wildcards, and select editors using mouse or keyboard.

Now you can also cycle through the list by pressing Ctrl+E again. Or use Arrow Up/Down as before.

Perspective descriptions in Open Perspective dialog

You can now see the description for a perspective (if provided by the contributing plug-in) by pressing F2 in the Open Perspective dialog.

Improved string matching in Quick Access

You can now search for partial descriptions in Quick Access (Ctrl+3). The search result matches space-separated words in the search string. For example, searching for "clone repo", will match the "Clone a Git Repository" command.

The improved string matching works also in the case of parenthesis, or when the search string matches the category name.

Filter previous choices in Quick Access

The Quick Access (Ctrl+3) result list does not show duplicate elements anymore. Now, if a search result element is already in the "Previous Choices" category, it is no longer shown in another category.

Window title configuration

The title window is now simpler and you can configure it from Preferences. By default, the title displays workspace name, editor path, and product name.

You can now use Preferences > Workspace to choose what to display in the window title: workspace name, perspective name, workspace path, and product name.

"Launch Group" launch configuration type

The new Launch groups launch configuration type allows you to launch multiple other launch configurations sequentially, with configurable actions after launching each group member:

• None: Continue launching the next member right away.
• Wait until terminated: Continue launching the next member only after this member has terminated.
• Delay: Delay launching the next member for a given amount of seconds.

New launch groups can be created via the Run > Run Configurations…  or Run > Debug Configurations…  dialogs.

Consistent heap status colors under Linux

The heap status had poor contrast on Linux since GTK3.04. This has been resolved for the heap status to look consistent across all platforms.

Fixed Progress view colors for the dark theme

The Progress view has been adjusted for the Eclipse dark theme.

Before:

After:

Breakpoints view: Sort By > Creation Time

In the Breakpoints view’s view menu, a new Sort By option has been added. This allows sorting by two ways:

• Name: Current default order, sorts by the displayed name.
• Creation Time: Newly created breakpoints will be shown on top.

Wildcards in Quick Access

You can now use * and ? as wildcards to filter Quick Access (Ctrl+3) items. The match ranges are displayed in bold.

Show/hide Status Bar

You can now hide and show the bottom status bar via menu: Window > Appearance > Hide (Show) Status Bar.

In Quick Access, the command is called Toggle Statusbar.

Improved Launch Groups

The UI for the new Launch Groups feature in the Run/Debug Configurations… dialog has been reworked to be more intuitive and user-friendly. Also, additional configuration possibilities have been added:

• 'Wait for console output (regexp)' post launch action: Allows to delay further processing of launch group elements until a certain output (matching a regular expression) appears on the console of the given group element.
• 'Adopt launch if already running': Allows controlling the behavior of the group when the launch configuration referenced by the launch group element is already running (no matter who launched it). If checked, the launch configuration will not be launched again if it is running already. The existing launch will be adopted by the group (i.e. terminating the group will also terminate this launch). Any configured post launch action will still be executed!

Content Assist for Feature Name in Model Editor

You can now use Ctrl+Space to trigger content assist when selecting the Feature Name in the Model Editor.

Model Editor improvements

The elements proposed in the Add child menus are now filtered to a minimal list containing allowed elements only.

Generic editor can now read patch and diff files

An extension was provided to the generic editor so that it now can provide syntax highlighting for files with the .patch or .diffextension. Right-click the file and choose Open with > Generic Text Editor to see the editor in action.

Improved exit and restart dialogs

The exit and restart dialogs now use verbs instead of OK/No/Yes, which makes the dialogs more direct and specific.

Support for extending existing CSS preference nodes

CSS definitions for preferences can now use pseudo selectors. This allows that other plug-ins extend preference CSS nodes, instead of overriding them. This makes the default Eclipse dark theme much more consistent and usable.

Example styling with EGit installed before this development:

Example styling with EGit installed after this development:

Option to copy your preferences during workspace switch

You can now copy your preferences during a switch to a new or existing workspace.

Option to disable Problems view decoration on startup

By default, the Problems view icon no longer shows an errors/warnings overlay after startup, unless the Problems view is on top of the view stack. To enable the errors/warnings overlay also if the Problems view is minimized or not on top, a new Show Problems view decorations on startup option has been added to Preferences > General > Startup and Shutdown. By default, this preference is disabled.

Ant 1.10.1

Eclipse has adopted Ant version 1.10.1.

Java Development Tools (JDT)

Show JUnit failure trace in Console view

A new button has been added to the JUnit Failure Trace header to show the stack trace of a failed JUnit test in the Console view. The Console view makes it convenient to view a long and wide stack trace, copy parts of the stack trace and navigate to the classes on the stack trace using hyperlinks.

Skip button in Organize Imports dialog

While using the Organize Imports dialog to import multiple unresolved types, you can now skip a type without cancelling the operation by using the new Skip button. No import statement is added for the skipped type.

Type name with extension in New Java Type creation wizards

New Java Type creation wizards now accept the .java extension with the type name instead of showing the error message: "Type name must not be qualified". For example, to create a new class com.test.C1<T>.java, you can directly paste this qualified type name with extension in the Name field of the New Java Class wizard.

Method result after step operations

During debugging, the last method result (per return or throw) that was observed during Step Into, Step Over or Step Return, is shown as first line in the Variables view.

This can be disabled with the new option Preferences > Java > Debug > Show method result after a step operation (if supported by the VM; may be slow)

Triggers for breakpoints

You can now define a set of triggers for the breakpoints in a workspace

Any breakpoint can be set as a trigger point by using Breakpoint Properties…  dialog or the Breakpoints view’s detail pane.

Triggers will be rendered with an overlay of "T" and the breakpoints suppressed by the triggers will be rendered with an overlay of "T" with a cut. All the other breakpoints that are initially suppressed by triggers will be hit only after any of the trigger points has been hit. All the triggers are disabled after a trigger point is hit and will be re-enabled after the run.

Remote Java Application "Socket Listen" type supports multiple incoming connections

The Remote Java Application debug configuration’s Standard (Socket Listen) connection type now supports incoming connections from multiple VMs. This is useful for debugging distributed systems. The connection limit may be set to a fixed number, or 0 for unlimited connections.

New option to disable HCR

You can now disable Hot Code Replace (HCR) if it causes any trouble or if you want to avoid code changes in a debug target. HCR is enabled by default but can be disabled in Preferences > Java > Debug.

Escape text when pasting into a string literal

The Java > Editor > Typing > Escape text when pasting into a string literal preference option is now enabled by default. This will escape the special characters in pasted strings when they are pasted into an existing string literal.

To paste without escaping, either you can paste outside of a string literal, or you can disable Edit > Smart Insert Mode.

Set colors for Javadoc

You can use the new color preferences to set the foreground text color and the background color in the Javadoc view and hovers:

Hide inherited members from java.lang.Object

You can hide all inherited members from java.lang.Object in the Quick Outline (Ctrl+O) by using the new filter from the drop-down menu (Ctrl+F10):

New Java index

Eclipse Oxygen contains an experimental new Java index, which is enabled by default. If you suspect an index-related problem, you can disable the new index from Preferences > Java:

Currently, the new index shouldn’t affect your experience. Once the work is finished, we expect big performance improvements for type hierarchies and in scenarios with many JARs.

Consistent Javadoc colors usage under Linux

The Javadoc color usage on Linux was inconsistent since GTK 3.04. This has been resolved and support for Javadoc on the Eclipse Dark Theme has been added.

Before:

After:

Dark theme support:

Open Implementation of selected Type

The Open Implementation hyperlink and the Navigate > Open Implementation action now open the implementation of the selected interface or class also. In the past, Open Implementation was only available for methods.

The hyperlink pop-up shows up when you hold Ctrl (on the Mac: Command) unless you’ve changed the modifier on the Hyperlinking preference page.

Automatically insert Braces at correct position

The Java > Editor > Typing > Automatically insert at correct position > Braces preference option is now enabled by default. This will automatically insert the braces where they are required.

Quick Fix to move type annotations

The rules for the placement of Java 8 "type annotations" introduced via JSR 308 are sometimes surprising. In the case of errors, a new Quick Fix Move type annotation is offered, that moves the type annotation to a location that corresponds to what was probably intended.

Toggle Tracepoint

A new action Run > Toggle Tracepoint has been added.

The action creates a conditional breakpoint using the "systrace" template, which prints the class and method name.

This makes use of another new feature of conditional breakpoints: As long as the condition doesn’t explicitly return a boolean true, the condition is now considered to implicitly return false, and the breakpoint will not suspend execution.

HiDPI JDT icons

Composite icons such as Java element icons with modifier overlays are now rendered in high-resolution in environments that support HiDPI images.

Warnings for unlikely argument types

Many developers have learned the hard way, that certain uses of Java collections that pass the compiler’s type check, may still contain "type errors", resulting in unexpected runtime behavior. A new analysis has been added to the Eclipse compiler for Java that will detect the most common bugs in this area.

The common reason behind this problem is the fact that not all methods of those collection types make use of generics in the way one might expect. As a result, it is possible to create a Set<Short>, whose add (Short) method will only accept arguments of type Short, yet method remove (Object) will happily accept literally any argument because the method’s parameter has type Object.

Here is a code snippet that seems to add and remove the same element from the set, but at a closer look, the remove call has no effect. What is difficult to see to the naked eye is now flagged by a new warning:

In a simple world, this would be all there is to say, but over time people have developed various code patterns that rely on these overly general signatures. Consider the following use of subtyping:

Depending on your coding style this may or may not be accepted as a legitimate short hand for:

if (n instanceof Short) set.remove ((Short) n);

To reduce the churn caused by the new analysis, we developed some heuristics that filter out cases where types are "sufficiently similar", so the above goes unwarned.

As with any heuristic, there is no clear line. This implies that the compiler may show "unwanted" warnings, or filter out invocations that are in fact bugs. For the former case, @SuppressWarnings("unlikely-arg-type") will document the exception both for the user and for the compiler. For the latter case, we provide an option to tighten the rules, namely to apply strict type compatibility checks instead of said heuristics. For this extra scrutiny you may enable the sub-option Perform strict analysis against the expected type in Preferences > Java > Compiler > Errors/Warnings > Potential programming problems.

Similarly, a check with default severity "Info" is offered for unlikely invocations of java.lang.Object.equals(Object) and java.util.Objects.equals(Object,Object).

Conditional watchpoint

Like for line breakpoints, conditions can now also be added to Watchpoints, where the old value of the field can be used as part of the condition.

Code formatter: new way to count comment width

A new option has been added in the code formatter profile editor that makes the formatter count a comment’s width from its starting position instead of the beginning of the line. This allows more space for comments in heavily indented blocks of code and for line comments added to the right of some code, but at the same time keeps comments that start at the beginning of the line from getting too wide and uncomfortable to read. You can change this setting in the Comments section, under the Line width group:

Hide deprecated fields and methods

You can now hide the deprecated fields and methods in Outline view, Members view, Package Explorer view, Project Explorer view, and Quick Outline by using the new filter from their drop-down menu (Ctrl+F10):

Group by Project in Search view

The default grouping of Java search results in the Search view has been changed to Group by Project. Earlier the results were grouped by package.

Defaults for annotation type elements in Javadoc

The default value of an annotation type element is now shown in the Javadoc view and hover.

Show Logical Structure enabled by default

In the Variables view, Show Logical Structure is now enabled by default. E.g. collection objects now directly show their contained elements instead of their internal structure.

The Show Logical Structure context menu lets you choose or edit the representation.

Pass compiler options to annotation processors

You can now pass compiler options to annotation processors using %variable% syntax in Project > Properties > Java Compiler > Annotation Processing.

This allows processors to compile Java sources using the Java project’s settings without manually maintaining this information in the processor options.

And more…

You can find more noteworthy updates in on this page.

What is next?

Having JBoss Tools 4.5 and Developer Studio 11.0 out we are already working on the next maintenance release for Eclipse Oxygen.