Domino OSGI (Part 1) - Configuring Eclipse for XPages OSGI Plugins

Recently I have been writing some of my own XPage components, initially i began writing them inside domino in the nsf that was using them.
I eventually i began to put some of the controls inside other nsfs, but as always i had to make some fixes enhancements to the bugs Features that I happened to code into the components. I then had to go back to the other databases and apply these enhancements.
So, I decided it was time to write my own plugin to deploy the components to the server so they would be available to all applications also giving me one place to update.

In the next series of posts I'm going to describe how i set up my environment to create plugins using eclipse.

Part 1 - Downloading and Configuring Eclipse

Firstly download Eclipse, I use Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers however i think Eclipse for RCP and RAP Developers is also suitable.
Extract the Eclipse folder from the downloaded zip into your desired location eg: c:\Program Files\Eclipse
I then create a shortcut on my desktop to the eclipse.exe

Next download XPages SDK for Eclipse RCP from OpenNTF and the Domino Debug Plugin from IBM. Extract the update site from the Domino Debug Plugin zip file (com.ibm.domino.osgi.debug.site.zip)

Now we have everything we can start Eclipse and configure accordingly. When you first start Eclipse you will be prompted to choose your workspace. Change if you wish or just click OK.

Once inside eclipse go to Help -> Install New Software. When the Install window loads click Add to link to a new repository. Enter a name 'Domino Debug Plugin', click Archive and select the debug plugin update site you extracted earlier.

Click ok. Expand the list and select the Domino OSGI Debug feature

Click Next -> Next -> Accept the license -> Click Finish
OK the security warning

Don't bother restarting yet. Go back and install the XPages SDK as we did with the Debug plugin above:

Once the XPages SDK is installed restart Eclipse.

Now we need to configure the XPages SDK. Goto Window -> Preferences and select XPages SDK at the bottom.
Ensure you tick Automatically create JRE and fill in the fields accordingly

Click Apply.
Next go to Java -> Compiler and drop the compliance level to 1.6 (assuming it's not there already). Click Apply.
Go to Java -> Installed JREs and select XPages Notes JRE (This will not be here if you did not tick the box above)
Go to Plug-in Development -> OSGi Frameworks and select Domino OSGi Framework. Click Apply.

Finally we need to create a Target platform, fortunately this is easy with the XPages SDK installed.
Go to Plug-in Development ->Target Platform and click Add
Select Template Notes Install Target

Click Next. Click Finish.
Now select the Target we just created and click Apply.

Click OK

There we go, we are now ready to begin creating a plugin!